Timeline
Monday19th Jan 2026
Talking Point Do You Think The Game Awards FPS 'Highguard' Will Actually Hit Xbox Next Week?
We're officially a week away from launch, or are we?
One of the big talking points coming out of The Game Awards last month was how much the event's final trailer fell flat for viewers. Highguard, from new studio Wildlight Entertainment, is an upcoming free-to-play FPS that (supposedly) hits Xbox i
News Ubisoft's Retrofuture Far Cry Game Has Always Deserved 60FPS, And It's Almost Here
The next 60FPS Far Cry trailer has landed
At the weekend, Ubisoft announced that three Far Cry games were set for 60FPS updates on current-gen consoles this week - and now that the Blood Dragon trailer is here for us to feast our eyes on, we can't wait to replay this one at a smooth frame rate on Xbox Series X|S. We've chucked this 60FPS update...
News Footage From Xbox's Cancelled ZeniMax Online Game Leaks, Looks Very Cyberpunk
Here's what the ESO dev was working on
Back in July of last year, Microsoft cancelled The Elder Scrolls Online dev's next game — Project Blackbird — despite reports that some Xbox execs were "blown away" by it previously. Unfortunately, the public never got to see the title in action, but now, some footage of the canned MMORPG has leaked online,...
Guide Xbox Developer Direct 2026: Event Date, Start Times & What To Expect From The Showcase
It's going to be a big show for Microsoft
It's almost time for Xbox Developer Direct 2026! Yep, this year's edition of the team's January showcase takes place this week, with three games confirmed for the show already. So, we're going to gather up all the details you need to know for this next Xbox showcase, including when it begins, which games...
News Some Xbox Users Were Surprised With Free Gift Cards Over The Weekend
Stemming from a promotion in December
Xbox has been giving out some free gift cards again! Various Xbox users were surprised with some extra credit over the weekend, and it all stems from a promotion that started back in December. When the Xbox Countdown Sale began on December 18th, it was quietly revealed that buying EA Sports and/or 2K Sports...
Report Microsoft Is Set To Launch An Xbox Cloud Gaming Ad-Tier This Year
Messages are already popping up for some users
Late last year, we heard that Microsoft had started doing internal tests for an ad-supported tier of Xbox Cloud Gaming, and while this hasn't gone live for the public yet, a new report — along with some concrete evidence from other sources — suggests that the new tier is real and will launch in the...
Feature Five Things I've Learned After Using The ROG Xbox Ally X For Eight Hours Per-Day
Let's call it a three-month review!
Just over three months ago, I published my initial thoughts on the ROG Xbox Ally X handheld in a review here at Pure Xbox, concluding that it was "the only gaming device I've wanted to use over the past two weeks, and it's handled most things that I've thrown at it with confidence". A month later, I decided to...
Sunday18th Jan 2026
Feature 50 Backwards Compatible Xbox Games That Are 'Disc Only' In 2026
Digitally delisted, but all hope's not lost!
There are hundreds and hundreds of backwards compatible games from the original Xbox and Xbox 360 eras that we can enjoy on our modern consoles, and it's ultimately one of the best initiatives Xbox has ever put together for us. That said, there are obviously some games that aren't part of the program —...
Roundup All Of These Games Are Reduced By 90% In January's Xbox Publisher Spotlight Sale
Bag yourself a bargain
There are multiple sales taking place on the Xbox Store this week as usual, but arguably none more interesting than the January Publisher Spotlight Series Sale, which sees various games getting the heavy discount treatment! So, we thought we'd go through and highlight all the games reduced by 90% in the Publisher Spotlight...
News Seven Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass In Late January 2026
Here's what's on the chopping block
Microsoft has revealed the next seven games leaving Xbox Game Pass in late January 2026, with all of these being highlighted as "leaving soon" on the official Xbox mobile app. Although there aren't any major AAA titles in the mix, there are still some excellent games in here — Citizen Sleeper 2 was a 2025 Game...
Saturday17th Jan 2026
Poll What Are Your First Impressions Of Star Wars Outlaws On Xbox Game Pass?
The massive Ubisoft game hits XGP
Last week's major addition to Xbox Game Pass was definitely Star Wars Outlaws; Ubisoft's recent open world epic has been live for Game Pass Ultimate players for a good few days now. So, if this is your first introduction to the Massive Entertainment title, what do you think of it so far? Here at Pure Xbox HQ, we...
News Three Far Cry Games Set To Receive 60FPS Upgrades On Xbox Next Week
Quietly confirmed by Ubisoft on social media
Anyone fancy some (hopefully free) upgrades for three Far Cry games on Xbox next week?! On Friday, the official Far Cry account on Twitter posted a cryptic image suggesting something was in the works, and now Ubisoft has confirmed that it relates to 60FPS upgrades for Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon...
News Three Games Are Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In February 2026 So Far
An early look at Feb's lineup
As we always do around this time of the month, we're taking an early look today at what's ahead for February 2026's Xbox Game Pass selection, with three titles having been confirmed for the service next month already. The headline game so far is definitely High on Life 2; this absurd-looking sequel aims to level up...
Feature These 20+ Games Are Coming To Xbox Next Week (January 19-23)
Including another three Game Pass titles!
Welcome to your Xbox games roundup for January 19-23! We've got two major releases over the next few days in 2XKO and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, along with three Xbox Game Pass titles including Resident Evil Village! There's a whole bunch of great indie games to look through as well. Here's what's...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 17-18)
How about some Star Wars Outlaws on XGP?
Welcome to another weekend! With our gaming-related Christmas gifts still kicking around and Xbox Game Pass now getting into full swing for 2026, we've got plenty to be getting stuck into over the next few days. Here's what we're playing this weekend: Ben Kerry, Staff Writer: With the addition of Star Wars...
Friday16th Jan 2026
Talking Point Xbox Series X|S Owners, How's Your Storage Looking In 2026?
Do you have any Expansion Cards?
It's an annual tradition for us here at Pure Xbox to poll the community about how you've been managing your Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S storage over the past twelve months, and somehow it's already time for the 2026 edition! Going back over the last few years, it's interesting to see how the poll results have...
News MAVRIX IS Bringing Its 'Massive' Open World Downhill Biking Game To Xbox Next Thursday
"The ultimate multiplayer open world designed by Pro riders"
If you're a fan of games like Riders Republic or Descenders on Xbox, you'll probably want to know about MAVRIX by Matt Jones — a little-known extreme sports game that's arriving on Xbox in early access next Thursday, January 22nd. MAVRIX has been on Steam for a few months now, where it...
News Resident Evil 4 Fans Should Be Well-Served By Requiem's Third-Person Action Next Month
Capcom gives first look at Leon gameplay
This week brought us another Resident Evil Requiem showcase ahead of the game's Xbox launch next month, and this latest look at the Capcom horror title focused on how its two protagonists will differ; with our first glimpse at Leon gameplay giving us some proper Resident Evil 4 vibes in the video up above...
News 12 SEGA Game Gear Titles Will Be Playable In Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties On Xbox
A retro fan's paradise
We're now less than a month away from the release of Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on February 12th, and ahead of launch, we've been learning about loads of retro games that'll be part of the package. The thing that's getting the most attention right now is that no less than 12 SEGA Game Gear...
Poll Ahead Of Developer Direct 2026, Which Is Your Favourite Fable Game On Xbox?
A fabled Xbox franchise
2026 is the year we finally get a new Fable game, with Xbox developer Playground Games having been hard at work on an Xbox Series X|S reboot for years now. So, with us less than a week away from seeing it in full force at Developer Direct 2026, which is your favourite Fable game so far?
News One Of The Most Ridiculous Xbox Games We've Ever Seen Is Coming Out Next Week
It's called "I'm In Love With Your Dead Grandmother". Seriously.
Every Saturday, we put together a list of games coming to Xbox over the next week, and that's exactly what we've been drafting up over the past few hours — with one game in particular standing out just because of how ridiculous it is. Yes, on January 23rd, we'll be getting a game...
Talking Point How Do You Feel About Xbox Game Pass In 2026?
Is it still your primary way to play Xbox games?
It's been a good few months now since Microsoft overhauled its Xbox Game Pass service, with Premium taking hold as the platform's mid-tier option whilst Ultimate got a bunch of ne
News 'This Blew Up Way Out Of Proportion' - JDM Dev Insists Forza Comment Was Just A Joke
It's racked up one million views
Back in October, we highlighted Japanese Drift Master as a "very intriguing" new racing game heading to Xbox a month later, and it's since launched to a decent 3.8/5 rating on the Xbox Store — 50% of all of its reviews are 5/5 on there. It's clearly a good game that's well worth considering, but unfortunately, the...
Thursday15th Jan 2026
"We were very short on memory"
The folks over at Digital Foundry have today put out an extensive piece on the making of Assassin's Creed Shadows for Switch 2, and with Xbox Series S most closely resembling Nintendo's hybrid system, we thought we'd have a quick look for anything relevant in here — and a
News Seven Games Are Jam-Packed Into The First Xbox Free Play Days Of 2026
It's an EA Sports takeover!
Xbox Free Play Days is back! We haven't covered anything Free Play Days related since December 18th, but now Microsoft has returned with a huge version of the promotion for the next few days. Simply put, this week's Xbox Free Play Days is all about EA Sports titles, with seven games jam-packed into the lineup including...
News Two Xbox Game Studios Titles Will Compete For The Same Outstanding Visuals Award At VES 2026
Internal duel
Hot on the heels of taking home an award each at The Game Awards 2025, Xbox's DOOM: The Dark Ages and South of Midnight are both up for another award in 2026, right as the latter is about to launch on PS5 and Switch 2 this spring. Yep, id Software's viscer
News Bethesda's Fallout Resurgence Is In Full Swing As FO4 Hits Almost 100K Daily Players On Xbox
Madness!
At this point, it's safe to say that Amazon's Fallout TV show has been a massive success not only in itself but also for the franchise at large, and some new data from the Christmas period shows how big of an impact the show has had on older Fallout games for Microsoft and Bethesda. Coming from GamesIndustry.biz (with data supplied by...
Feature These Are The 10 Highest-Rated Original Xbox Games Of All Time, But Do You Agree?
According to Metacritic at least
As the original Xbox prepares to turn 25 years old this November, we thought we'd take a look back at the OG Xbox era and discover which of its games were considered the absolute best of all time. To do this, we headed over to Metacritic's "Best Games on Xbox" rankings, which combine a bunch of critics' reviews for...
News Four New Games Added To Retro Classics On Xbox Game Pass In January 2026
Three Activision classics, one 90s Sierra title
We have our first Xbox Retro Classics games of the new year! Four titles have been added to the library here in January 2026, including three old school games straight from Activision's '80s catalogue. Here are those new additions to Xbox Retro Classics this month: Keystone Kapers (1983) (Atari...
News Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War Players Warn Of Ongoing Issue With The Xbox PC Version
Warner Bros. says the "appropriate teams" are aware
Yesterday, we reported how Xbox had teamed up with Kojima Productions and 505 Games to fix a long-reported game save issue with the Xbox PC version of Death Stranding Director's Cut, and now we've unfortunately got another example to bring to your attention. Thanks to Pure Xbox member OskarRex, we...
The PlayStation 2025 charts are in
Sony has this week revealed the top 20 best-selling PS5 games digitally throughout 2025, and Microsoft has a large presence on the list — with Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6, Forza Horizon 5, Oblivion Remastered and more making the cut. Forza Horizon 5 is perhaps the most impressive performer here; the four year old...
Wednesday14th Jan 2026
Feature I've Never Played Final Fantasy 7 Before, But I'm Liking The Remake On Xbox So Far
The Play Anywhere functionality is amazing as well
With so many games on the market, it's not uncommon for people to accidentally gloss over some absolute classics over the years, and one of those for me is Final Fantasy 7. I've always loved the look of the PS1 game, but Legend of Dragoon is the similar RPG that I was devoting my time to back in the...
News Xbox Updates 'Safer Gaming' Principles In Partnership With Nintendo & PlayStation
"We’ve partnered behind the scenes"
All the way back in late 2020, Xbox announced that it was partnering with Sony (PlayStation) and Nintendo to work on a "shared commitment to safer gaming", and that relationship still continues over five years later. Today, an updated set of safer gaming principles has been revealed by Xbox, separated into...
A festival of games
Well, after plenty of rumour and hearsay suggesting that Forza Horizon 6 could be a first half of 2026 title, a new leak has narrowed that down to May, and if this date is real — as multiple
News Xbox Partners With Kojima To Fix Major Save Bug In Death Stranding Director's Cut
It had been plaguing the Xbox PC version
We've been absolutely loving Death Stranding Director's Cut ever since it landed on Xbox Series X and Series S in late 2024, but there's been a major bug that's been plaguing the Xbox PC / Play Anywhere version for ages now. Basically, if you played the PC version for anything longer than around 30-60...
News Xbox Might Have Just Revealed Forza Horizon 6's Release Date
Via an in-game FH5 message
While we wait for official confirmation at the Xbox Developer Direct Showcase next week, it appears that Xbox might have just accidentally revealed Forza Horizon 6's release date via an in-game Horizon 5 message. According to the pop-up that was shared by Xbox Infinite on social media, Forza Horizon 6 has a release date...
News Star Wars Genesis Creator Explains Why Viral Starfield Mod Is 'Never' Coming To Xbox
Never say never!
Over the past few days, you may have heard about a Starfield mod called Star Wars Genesis — it's been going viral and getting a lot of traction on the likes of YouTube — and unfortunately the official line is that it's not coming to Xbox. Star Wars Genesis is actually described as a "Star Wars modlist", which means it's not...
Feature 10 New Xbox Indie Games That Should Be On Your Radar In January 2026
A few notable releases we wanted to highlight!
We're halfway into January already, but with the new releases starting to ramp up on Xbox over the final few weeks, we thought we'd bring back our monthly indie games feature and highlight some of the most intriguing new titles! There's plenty of interesting stuff here, including the day one release of...
News Hytale Set For Eventual Xbox Release As Game Racks Up Millions Of Players On Day One
Developed by the team behind the Minecraft 'Hypixel' server
Over 10 years ago, the team behind the popular Minecraft multiplayer server known as "Hypixel" decided to embark on creating their own Minecraft-style game called Hytale, but after multiple years of delays, the game was officially cancelled in June 2025. Then, miraculously, the game's...
Tuesday13th Jan 2026
News Xbox Legend Major Nelson Announces He's Been Laid Off From Unity
We miss you at Xbox, Larry!
We've spoken about Major Nelson many times here at Pure Xbox — he's known for having been the face of Xbox marketing for over two decades until he left Microsoft in 2023, while also working on tons of other features at Xbox over the years including achievements, Party Chat, cloud saves, in-game messaging and a whole lot...
Talking Point As Xbox Celebrates 25 Years, What's Your First Ever Xbox Memory?
Have you been a fan since 2001?!
2026 promises to be a year of celebration for Xbox, at least in terms of celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original Xbox console, which first released all the way back on November 15th of 2001. With that in mind, we're keen to know about your very first ever Xbox memory! We're assuming some Xbox members will...
News Control Resonant 'Isn't A Safe Sequel' And Will Be Remedy's 'Most Ambitious Game' On Xbox
"We wanted to challenge ourselves"
Since Control dropped in 2019, most fans have been eager to see what a bigger and better sequel might look like - and with Control Resonant now announced as the team's follow-up for a 2026 launch, Remedy is starting to build hype and set expectations for its next game after the excellent Alan Wake 2. Simply put, it...
News ARC Raiders Is Handing Out A Free Gift On Xbox To Celebrate Huge Sales & Player Numbers
Here's how to claim it
The ARC Raiders team is handing out a DLC freebie on Xbox right now as a result of some massive new player numbers and sales milestones for the title, but you've got to be quick to claim it. Anyone who logs into ARC Raiders before 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm GMT / Midnight CET today, January 13th, will be eligible to claim the...
News Call Of Duty On Switch 2 Looks Imminent As 'Nintendo' Files Appear In COD App
Call of Datamine
Last month, we heard from Xbox reporter Jez Corden that Microsoft's Call of Duty series would soon move over to Nintendo platforms, and over the last few days, some evidence has cropped up to suggest that COD on Switch 2 is imminent. As covered in an update by our friends over at Nintendo Life, social media account
News Xbox Drops Multiple Games To Their 'Lowest Price Ever' In New Publisher Spotlight Sale
Some really good discounts in here!
We've got a couple of new sales that have just gone live on the Xbox Store today, and one in particular has dropped a bunch of games to their lowest price ever — the newest Publisher Spotlight Series Sale. This sale is made up of games from Nacon, Microids, Wired Productions, Daedalic Entertainment and E-Home,...
News Fable Creator's 'Masters of Albion' Gets Official Release Date, But It's PC-Only At Launch
April's Albion
After missing its original 2025 release window, Peter Molyneux's 22cans studio has announced the official release date for Masters of Albion; on PC at least. The Fable creator's upcoming god game arrives for the platform on April 22nd, 2026 (at 6pm UK time, to be precise), with a console release hopefully to follow soon after. You...
News Xbox Gives Refunds For Red Dead Redemption Following Recent Upgrade Issues
If you bought it unnecessarily, you might be getting that money back!
Back at the start of December, Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption upgrade for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S officially started rolling out, but owners of the Xbox 360 version immediately reported issues with getting access to it. This continued for quite a while, and it led to...
Monday12th Jan 2026
Rumour Ninja Theory's 'Project: Mara' Was Just A Concept, Hellblade 3 Could Be Their Next Game
"From what I understand, the next game is Hellblade 3"
On very rare occasions over the past few years, we've heard from Xbox studio Ninja Theory about something called "Project: Mara", which was first announced all the way back in 2020 as a "new in-development experimental title that explores new ways of storytelling". Unfortunately, it now...
Feature Xbox Game Pass Players Are Getting A Fantastic Survival Horror Experience Next Week
A new village awaits
Each Resident Evil game always tries to add a little something different to the survival horror genre; some are spookier, some are more action-oriented and some straddle that line in an almost perfect dance that only Capcom manages to pull off these days. While RE's recent run has mostly been filled with remakes that fall into...
News This New RPG Is Heavily Inspired By Paper Mario, And It's Releasing On Xbox Next Week
"The gameplay feels like a classic Paper Mario game"
A game that almost certainly will have gone under the radar for most Xbox fans is Escape from Ever After, but if you like Paper Mario, it's one you'll definitely want to look out for when it releases on Xbox next week. This game is specifically described by its creators as being "a genre-bending...
