Bethesda's 'Roundhouse Studios' Is Working On An Unannounced Title At Xbox

Sometimes I’m not sure if this is half the issue with Xbox studios.
I know some studios work on multiple games.
But let’s focus on getting some top end AAA games out the door before moving to other games please Microsoft.
I know Xbox fans won’t like me saying this but look at HFW and soon GOWR. As far as I can tell one game one focus.
I unfortunately believe Starfield which seems to be expansive in size, exploration and modes of game play will end up a Jack of all trades and master of none. You read it here first, but let’s wait for the reviews, but some reviewer will put that when the time comes.

I wish they wouldn't even tell us about stuff until it was nearly done. For all we know whatever this is won't drop until 2026 lol

@Dezzy70 I agree they could really do to learn to walk before they can run. But this studio isn’t Arkane. It was just brought in to help with redfall. Redfall is going through its final polish stage now so odds are they aren’t really needed anymore.
This isn’t a story about Arkane working on something new before redfall ships…although I dare say the deathproof team are already hard at work on Arkanes next game.

@Kaloudz
You can tell people even on here are losing patients with Xbox as I get more agrees and less beaten up over my XBOX studios comments.
True “The next 12 months” made up PR because their studios games are miss managed and poor that’s what that is.
So far in 2 years only one game is pure AAA all round, FH5. up there with the best for its type with the likes HFW, GOW and Mario Odyssey etc.
In 2 dam years since release November 2022.
Being honest and I don’t hold much hope for Starfield or Redfall being top end all round AAA you can tell that from the showcase.

Puff, “the next 12 months” a joke Xbox.

I’m sure the same could be said for a lot of other developers about having unannounced games in development. Doesn’t mean much since most of Xbox’s current studios can’t put out a decent product if their lives depended on it.

Do we know who is involved at Roundhouse? They have not made anything no?

I would love to see more of The Evil Within and Prey. Something new would be even better. But I don't want them to announce things that are more than a year out.

@TheAshCohen09 Roundhouse is basically made up of employees from Human Head Studios... So Rune, Brink, The Quit Man, and original Prey...

@Dezzy70 Whilst 'some' Studio's may have multiple projects - like Obsidian for example, others have multiple Studios to work on multiple games simultaneously - Playground (Fable and Forza) and Arkane (Deathloop & Redfall) for example. Undead Labs make State of Decay, Coalition makes Gears, 343 make Halo, Turn 10 make Forza Motorsport...

We know Machinegames is working on Indiana Jones, not sure what id Software is doing after finishing Doom Eternal DLC etc last year. Tango finished Ghostwire: Tokyo recently, Arkane Lyon finished Deathloop last year (both expected to be ported to Xbox soon) and Arkane Texas are making Redfall and Bethesda is working on Starfield.

Sucker Punch had 6yrs between Infamous 2nd Son and Ghost of Tsushima, Guerilla took nearly 5yrs between Killzone and H:ZD and another 5yrs to make H:FW.

NOT ONE of the 'new' studios MS acquired has been at MS 5yrs yet. Its going to take Turn 10 over 5yrs to make a brand new Forza from the ground up - the last released in late 2017, before MS announced the likes of Compulsion, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory, Playground and the Initiative were joining Xbox at E3 in 2018.

You want AAA quality, polished games - like you 'expect' from Sony, that 'same' level of polish as Sony are known to delay games to make sure they are 'ready' to release - basically every big first party game for the past 10yrs has been 'delayed' at least once. Happy to wait '5yrs' for a sequel to H:ZD, wait 6yrs for SuckerPunch to make GoT, wait 5yrs for a sequel to GT Sport, Wait 5yrs for God of War and another 4yrs+ for its sequel. You are getting a game every 4-5yrs' from these studio's yet expect MS to have honoured ALL those prior agreements to finish off the games they were working on and somehow be churning out AAA games to rival Sony's in less than a few years - that's just ridiculous and pathetic!!!

The only reason CoD gets churned out annually is because they have about 8 studio's working on it and a '3yr' cycle to develop the 'theme' and campaign. 8 studio's making just 1 'game' a year. Ubisoft have multiple studio's working on Assassins Creed - Origins was not made by the same team that made Odyssey.

Point is, AAA games are taking much longer to make and polish - at least until UE5 and/or other Engines make it easier/quicker - but UE5 only entered 'production ready' status this year and most projects would be 'ported' from UE4 - games built without Nanite/Lumin so more traditionally designed and if they intend to use those features, may need to rebuild much of the world in Nanite and remove all 'faked' lighting to use Lumin - then polish to ensure the game runs as expected before they can release. It doesn't happen overnight!!!

Since God of War released in 2018, Xbox studios have released Halo Infinite, Gears 5 & Hivebusters, Gears Tactics, MSFS, Forza Horizon 4 & 5, Age of Empires 4, State of Decay 2, Psychonauts 2, Wastelands 3, Outer Worlds, Grounded (beta), Deathloop, Minecraft Dungeons, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Bleeding Edge as well as continued to release DLC, Updates etc to games like ESO, Doom Eternal, Fallout 76, Sea of Thieves etc too - not bad for just 4yrs...

and Bethesda only joined in March 21 - not even a year and half ago yet....

@BAMozzy
Don’t disagree with you
But Microsoft had studios before they started buying all the other ones.
Maybe I’m just impatient, but all I will says is look at Halo Infinite, yes delayed for a year and needed it, but it should still have been far better than when it did finally release. It has to be environmentally one of the blandest open world games released recently, after six years of development.
Amazing gun play and grappling hook play though.
My point ok give Xbox studios longer to make the games that’s good. But at least put out top quality in all areas of the game to make a top AAA, like FH5 is a good example of that.
When I watched Starfield, it looks ok but after all this time not AAA in all areas, but we shall see.
Every AAA game from a big Xbox studio should look as good as FH5 and HFW environment wise and varied environments and weather effects etc.
I am sure Starfield planet wise outside won’t come near to those two games.
It just seems Sony rightly or wrongly get a steady stream of AAA and flow time of the releases good throughout the year mainly, but not always.

@Dezzy70 MS had Mojang, Rare, 343, the Coalition and Turn 10 at the time when Playstation released God of War in 2018. Of those, Rare has been continuously supporting Sea of Thieves (and making Everwild), Mojang have released Minecraft Dungeons, working on Minecraft Legends and numerous Minecraft updates, the Coalition have made Gears 5, Hivebusters, Gears Tactics and worked with Epic on development of UE5 inc working on Matrix demo too, and Turn 10 has been working on a brand new Forza Motorsport game.

Playground weren't with MS until 2018 and after joining, released FH4 and now FH5 - both games were a step up from its predecessor and were built knowing they would launch straight into Game Pass - no sign of quality dropping.

Games like Starfield and Redfall were built originally with last gen hardware as the target - and may only of 'switched' to Current gen as late as 2021 when MS officially took over. Different devs have different priorities - some may want to go for 'prettier' visuals where as others may go for more variation and game-play options. Nothing made by Sony comes close to the 'scale' and 'ambition' of Starfield.

Sony had more than 2x the studio's that MS did prior to 2017 and bought a LOT of third Party support too - Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, CoD, Destiny, Avengers, Death Stranding etc - even if they did release on Xbox, PS offered 'more' content and bulk out their releases with 'remakes/remasters'

Since E3 2021, MS has released MSFS, AoE4, Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5, Sony have released just Horizon:FW and GT7 - not including any 'old' games ported up.

Its 'unfortunate' that a series of delays has had a 'big impact on MS this year in particular, and for Sony, their delays have worked in their favour as H:FW, GT:7 and GoW:R were originally scheduled for 2021. If they had met those dates, Sony would be relying on 3rd Party and/or 'remasters'. Its also unfortunate that some games haven't released on Xbox Consoles either due to various reasons but they still released these Xbox Studio games.

Point is, Xbox has a lot of Studio's now but they only started building up in 2018. Compulsion, Undead Labs, Playground and the Initiative were not exactly 'big' in terms of the industry as 2 had only made Xbox games, 1 was a brand new studio to be set up, and the other only had 2 'small' release (Contrast & We Happy Few). Incidentally, State of Decay released in 2013, 5yrs later, State of Decay 2 released (2018) and its not been '5yrs' to expect State of Decay 3 yet which is supposed to be 'much' bigger. Only Ninja Theory had really any impact outside of the Xbox ecosystem.

Obsidian, inXile and Double Fine joined late 2018 and ALL have released games since joining. A few years later, they announced their intention to buy Zenimax and completed that in March 2021 - which obviously added a bunch of Studios to push them above Sony's own Studio count - but that only occured less than 18mnths ago.

As for Halo Infinite, that is a matter of Opinion and it still scored more than some Sony exclusives (Days Gone for example). I actually enjoyed the more 'open world' design and completed 'everything' there was to do in that world (on Legendary). The 'more' you did, the more you unlock and the more 'fun' you can have just spending time in the open areas. Getting a group of soldiers, all equipped with Rocket Launchers, Snipers or Laser weapons and driving them around is so much fun!! Another game built to 'run' primarily on XB1S and not a 'next' gen system. More Biomes would have made the environment a bit more varied visually but I doubt it would have impacted the game-play loop!

@BAMozzy
Halo infinite gun play etc top end.
Open world environments, biomes, effects, weather, water etc etc. very last generation and bland.
Just look at far cry 6 on your series x there is no comparison in open world environmental beauty and diversity and effects etc, just look at the water and weather and day and night cycles in far cry 6. In every way make Halo Infinite Environmental world look last generation and bland.
And far cry 6 is a multiplatform game.
Halo Infinite is an Xbox Studio game.

On top of that go for Sony HFW Studio game and Halo Infinite looks even worse.

My point is Xbox should up its Studio game and it’s own Studios should be at that graphical environmental quality.

You watch Starfield outside environments will be not that good compared to far cry and HFW, you can see that in the showcase and that was on the main planets. Graphically poor and bland.

Even Phil knows and said Xbox need to step to HFW, GOWR graphically. Not in those exact words but he alluded to it, talking about high quality game assets in those games.

@Dezzy70 Well I'd rather they focus on the actual game-play, the depth and variety of the moment to moment action over adding a 'bit' more gloss on the visuals...

Different studios have different priorities, different engines that offer different strengths/weaknesses and as I said, Halo was built to run on an Xbox One S and target 1080/60fps - Far Cry 5/6 - even if they were intending to release on XB1S, were not built to run at a 'minimum' spec. They were built on PC for PC and then ported, scaled down and optimised for that hardware. That's why it doesn't run at 1080/30 on XB1S. I know Halo Infinite Open World is 30fps on XB1S but that was only scaled down after they scaled up for Series S/X. Look at the state of the game a year before it released - the 'game' built to run at 1080/60 on XB1S so with that 'weak' GPU, it was never going to be 'killer'. Its been in development for MUCH longer than FH5 which 'iterates' on developments made for FH4.

H:I is still a big step up from Halo: Guardians in every way - visual, game design etc etc. I am NO fan of 343 by any stretch of the imagination, but its the 'best' Halo they have made. Halo 4 may look 'great' but had no real substance - certainly not on the same level as Bungies. H:I is the closest they have come to capturing what made Halo in the first place.

Keep picking on 343, hope they get better but both the Coalition and Turn 10 have consistently made high quality games and easily compete with the 'best' Sony games visually. Playground too - built on Turn 10's Forza Engine. Sea of Thieves has some of the best water effects in a game. Flight Sim too is much larger scale than anything Sony offers and graphically very impressive too. Nothing I have seen from Sony (yet) competes with Hellblade 2 or the Coalitions 'demo' of UE5. Even FM seems a step up over GT7 graphically.

We will see if the 'new' games like Fable, Perfect Dark, State of Decay etc live up to expectations when we actually see some game-play - these were built (at least I assume) for Series X consoles as the 'lead' platform with no consideration to run on last gen hardware. Pretty much everything else was built for Last gen - whether it released on that system or not.

So one 'developer' has really struggled over the last 6yrs or so. Disappointing with Halo MCC and Halo: Guardians, struggling with development of H:I and why it was probably the lowest 'metacritic' scored game in recent times. Still did better than Days Gone and had over 20m players in its first week. Returnal struggled to 560k over its first few months despite reviewing better... That's a 1080p game on PS5 and drops below that too...

@BAMozzy
Please this is not Sony Vs Xbox I try to use good Xbox examples as well and have all 3 consoles.

When these Xbox studio games release and cover all AAA areas without silly excuses that Xbox fans make for Xbox. Like the amazing FH5 and probably the new FM will do, then I will start believing.

Yes I believe the coalition will amaze as well.
Hellblade 2 l shall wait and see, they showed a very bare minimum of that game and almost scripted gameplay in one tiny area.
Nothing to get impressed with so far.

@Kaloudz
Been with them since day one the original Xbox and so on and the glory Xbox360 days when they lead the way in all areas of AAA game.
They just have not really advanced apart from the FH, FM and gears of war on any AAA game level.

@TheTruthisGood
Whatever, playing HFW is like playing movie is it.
What planet you on today.

@Dezzy70 You are still missing the point. Devs regardless of whether they are multi-platform or not, have different priorities, different in game 'budgets', different costs to consider, different engines etc.

If you have an Xbox developer targeting 1080/60 on an XB1S, they need to reduce 'costs' to their 'time' budget - lower polygon counts, lower object call density etc to be able to 'hit' 1920x1080p resolution and render each frame in just 16.66ms. On PS4, if they target 1080/30 with Temporal Upscaling - they have a 'much' higher budget for visuals because they are targeting 'lower' native resolution and have a massive 33.3ms frame time and has quite a bit more graphical resources to play with.

Multi-platform games tend to make their games in a 'ball park' way, and then try to fit that into the platform container by cutting bits back until they get close to their 'ball park performance figures.

Consoles are 'fixed' spec hardware so devs have a 'fixed' budget for their games. Whether they target 30, 60 or more fps, they have a fixed amount of GPU/CPU performance per frame. That can be used for complex AI, Complex gaming systems, complex physics and/or filling the world with objects. but at some point, you have to choose between Graphics or Frame Rate (as you see more frame time, more graphical performance as it has 'longer' to work) but somethings have a 'fixed' cost - like AI, Physics etc and if they take 'longer' because you want to do 'more' here, then you have to reduce costs elsewhere - like Visual costs so reduce Objects calls, Polygon counts, etc.

You can't compare what one Developer does to another because their 'goals' and 'priorities' are different. The engine they use is different too - maybe more efficient in some areas, worse in others, its just too many different reasons why game 'A' may well look better than game 'B' made by a completely different studio.

Forza (both) and Gears targeted 1080p on XB1S - gears & Forza Horizon at 30fps - with a lower GPU budget than Guerilla had for Horizon: Zero Dawn as the PS4 had 30% more GPU resources. Devs have to decide how they want to use those 'fixed' resources, what's their priority - 'visuals', maybe AI/Physics etc is more involved so have lower graphical resources available than other devs...

@BAMozzy
Thank you for your detailed explanation.