Altaria_97

The only XBOX thing I own that isn’t actual game hardware or software is a Forza controller holder that Best Buy gave me for buying Forza MotorSport 6 because they had a surplus. I still use it to this day lol.

I doubt this will happen but I hope the Crash and Spyro trilogies get Series X optimizations for 4K60. I know Spyro had some minor physics issues tied to the frame rate on PC so that would probably involve a bit more effort.

Either way, glad to hear these are most likely coming soon.

Aside from wrapping up Paper Mario TTYD, I think I’m going to finally start Sea of Stars. I’m worried it only had a 12 month contract and it’ll leave Gamepass at the end of August. Might be a good idea to start that sooner than later!

@awp69 Sadly seems to be the case: https://www.ign.com/articles/steamworld-heist-2-unannounced-for-game-pass-pr-says-logo-was-a-a-mistake

😭

@Scenes I never pirate games and if you look up at the chat history I ended up finding a key for the DLC and purchased it. Last thing I’d want to do is steal from a developer but sometimes software gets abandoned and that’s the only way to preserve or play the content.

I didn’t know how cheap the ultimate edition would eventually go for (or that it included all the DLC) so I thought the DLC was gone forever already without any notice. That said, I have nothing but respect for Playground Games and was upset with Microsoft, not the devs.

@Scenes What? I just want to play the game and they took it away. No lesson to be taught. I’m a consumer that wants to play a game. What are you going on about?

@FraserG Update: I found a key website online that still had it cheap. Just got it for $12 and activated it on XBOX’s website while on a quick work break. I appreciate this article as I would’ve missed this news and not been able to purchase a key before they inevitably jump up in value.

For anyone who wants to play to own and play Forutune Island and the LEGO DLC… I suggest getting cheap keys asap!

@FraserG Thanks for the heads up, but it’s still a big middle finger from Microsoft.

Obtaining that Fortune Island pack just went from $20 to $80 now. I already own both the expansions for Horizon 5, as well as both Horizon 4 with the LEGO DLC. So all I need is the Fortune Island expansion and they don’t lower the price of the Deluxe edition even if you already own the base game + other DLC. So I guess I’m never buying it from them because of their scummy business practices.

Absolute d*ck move from Microsoft to delist the DLC without any notice. I was waiting for a nice discount to get the Fortune Island expansion… and they just rip it away without telling anyone in advance.

I might just pirate it on PC since that’s the only way to play it now but my concern is my Microsoft account will get banned or something… Microsoft has been bumming me out recently.

Star Wars Outlaws, The Plucky Squire, and SteamWorld Heist II all look really good. Very excited for all 3 of these!

I’d probably have said Gears of War if we saw actual gameplay and a release year. But since we didn’t see either of those, it’s hard for me to be hyped. So Indiana Jones it is.

I remember downloading this when I first got my Series X back in 2022 as it was free. It was actually pretty fun and visually looked great considering it was a mobile game first. But then I got GamePass and downloaded Horizon 5 and never played Asphalt again lol.

I’m sure the game is fun, so maybe I’ll give it another download. I don’t remember… is it a game you can “beat” with a single-player campaign or is it all online? If it’s the former, I could see myself playing through that content.

@abe_hikura That’s my guess as well. They’ll drip feed us Activision/Blizzard titles when they have light months. Hopefully I’m wrong and most of them just pop on the service soon.

I disagree with them but it’s subjective. I feel more immersed when playing a third person game as I feel like I’m controlling a character in a movie or a living world. First-person, while I don’t mind it, feels weird since I don’t sit directly in front of TV and monitor and I know that I’m just using a controller to play the game, not actually performing the actions of the character in the screen (VR is different works well in this regard). It would be nice to at least have the option for third-person.

That random rant aside, I trust Machine Games and I’m very excited for this game. Everything we’ve seen looks great and I love the IP. This will be a solid holiday for XBOX.

@mousieone Ah, my mistake. That’s what I get for just quickly skimming the article and mainly just reading the tweet. I just watched the part of the XBOX Podcast where they confirmed the game is fully playable in third-person.

My interest in this game just shot up immensely!

I didn’t watch the event, but I watched the gameplay of Star Wars and Assassins Creed separately later in the day.

Star Wars Outlaws looks fantastic and I’ll be picking that up once it drops a bit in price. Shadows looks decent. The stealth sections look nice (still some silly AI) but I don’t care to be a warrior in constant combat in an Assassin’s Creed game. They said you can chose your character most of the time so we’ll see.

Hopefully it’s possible to use throughout the full game. I always prefer third person over first person views other than competitive shooters with fast combat.

I guess I’m the minority here as I thought it was pretty bad as whole. There were a couple games I cared about but most of it just seemed like the most generic stuff. Gears E-Day getting announced was sweet… but no gameplay. I’ll give them this, DOOM and Perfect Dark looked great. Age of Mythology looks interesting as well, not sure if I care to try it though. But pretty much everything else I was just saying “meh” about.

I’ll probably watch it live unless I end up being out longer than expected.

I have the first Nick All Star Brawl game (Ultimate Edition) already so I hope it’s the sequel… but that probably means it’ll be the first one 😂

Damn, Octopath Traveler 1 + 2 AND The Callisto Protocol? This is a dope morning.

This is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because this should teach Warner Bros and other out-of-touch higher ups at companies to not spend millions on trash hero-shooter live service type games.

It’s bad though because those higher ups won’t be penalized, and most likely just fire the actual talented and hardworking developers that created their stupid trend-chasing vision.

Amazing surprise. The first one left gamepass around the time I joined and I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about the second one. Stocked to play them.

By the way, I heard the second one is better and I like the vibe of it more… is it okay to play that one first? My understanding is that it’s a completely new cast of characters and a separate, unique story.

I’m in no way expecting them, but Forza Horizon 6 and Banjo would make me explode.

Gears 6 and, hopefully, a Gears collection would make me happy as well.

Otherwise, I hope we get most of the Activision/Blizzard library on gamepass along with that rumor for Octopath Tarveler II.

Looks fine but why do they keep doing this lol

They sound like amazing and passionate people. Redfall has been in my bucket list to try from curiosity, so now might be a good time to finally give it a try.

Infinite is a fantastic game in my opinion. The campaign was great and the multiplayer, while rough at launch, is insanely fun to play. Visuals aren’t anything super impressive but look nice.

That said, I think the move to Unreal Engine is a good move. I know learning a new engine takes a lot of time, but I’m hoping it will allow them to work less on the backend of the game and focus on making a larger scale campaign and more fleshed out multiplayer.

Oh, and make it a visual looker. Halo deserves to have some amazing visuals.

Banjo is my dream reveal. Forza Horizon 6 is right behind it.

Based on rumors, the games that interest me most are Gears 6, the next DOOM, and Perfect Dark.

Why do they even make these consoles if they don’t sell them? Am I missing something? They make no money and only the small amount of news seekers like us know about them for “marketing” purposes.

I didn't get a chance to play the beta but I'm looking forward to the full release this week. Knowing there aren't any pay-to-win mechanics is very welcoming. This sort of seems like what CoD should be so here's hoping it's a solid experience.

Not too interested. I might give it a download for the visuals alone but the gameplay doesn't seem like my cup of tea and I hate the forced ultra-widescreen aspect-ratio.

@Echtzeit Unless they updated the article after your post, I was able to use the second link in the article to get to the store page. Where it says “on browser” is a link, easy to miss though.

I’ll claim it tonight, thanks for the heads up. I downloaded the game a while back but uninstalled it after some of the online achievements wouldn’t pop for me. Hopefully those achievement bugs are fixed up now.

It’s a fun game but I wish I could just buy a table or two for a couple bucks. I almost dipped for the classic Star Wars bundle for $8 but stopped myself as I have too many games to play currently lol.

Looking forward to it but not hyped. I like GTA but it’s never been a huge franchise for me.

I might give it a download just to see the visuals since they do look like some of the best this generation.

That said, I’m more excited to finally play Starfield (now that there’s 60fps, good HDR, maps, etc.) and try Lords of the Fallen. But I’m keeping an eye out for Hellblade reviews and will try it out most likely.

Seems like it keeps 60fps most of the time other than those large cities. I’ll try sticking to graphics mode at 60fps, I think with my VRR set it should look fine. Worst case I put it on performance mode.

@Nightcrawler71 Agreed, Star Outlaws is probably my most anticipated game of the year besides Paper Mario TTYD. I’m really excited to see an open-world Star Wars game playing as a scoundrel/bounty hunter.

Looks interesting but I need to see gameplay. Hoping for a decent amount of actual stealth, which is why I suppose there are two characters to break up the gameplay.

I’ll beat the dead horse: Did the game studio for this game just get shut down?

*unchecks all but Hi-Fi Rush

Immortals of Aveum and Lords of the Fallen I’ll check out. Hellblade has never really interested me, but if they decide to make the game support 16:9 (like the display type 99% of their users have) I’d consider giving it a download.

Weird, the dynamic background displays at a non-cinematic 16:9 ratio!

I played it on Xbox and loved it. So I think leaving a positive review on Steam later today is actually warranted for me lol.

@GeeEssEff It could be a time-exclusivity deal but it could also just be the dev/publisher not seeing any financial incentive to bring it to XBOX.

Bringing it to another platform would probably mean more time optimizing it for said platform, testing it extensively, and paying fees to have it up on the storefront. If they don’t anticipate a lot of sales on XBOX, it might just not be worth their time and money to do so.

Got downvoted for this before but as good of a deal Game Pass is, it’s not good for the future development of single player titles. Games on the service don’t make money on a per sale basis, so they only care about install rates and hours played per game.

This means shorter single player games like Hi-Fi Rush and Ghostwire, or short co-op title like Redfall, will show much lower numbers.

Another big metric is the amount of new subscribers around the release of said games, but they barely marketed Hi-Fi Rush and its contemporaries. Most people outside of the XBOX sphere didn’t even know some of these games existed.

This is why they mainly care about games that have insane support prior to launch, like Starfield, or games where they can milk micro transactions or playtime down player’s throats. I’d bet that’s why Forza Horizon 5, Forza MotorSport, Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, and many more of their recent games have so many “live service” elements baked in.

There’s single player content coming that they’ve been developing for a while, like Avowed, Indiana Jones, and Gears… but I have a feeling they’ll slowly be shifting to only making live-service games over time, or single-player titles with a lot of live-service elements baked in that feel incomplete for many months.

Hopefully I’m wrong but things sure seem like they’re heading this way.

With Microsoft’s output and studio closures, plus the rising cost of GamePass (and the nerf to “upgrading through gold”), I’m definitely not renewing my subscription once it runs out.

That said, my subscription won’t expire until December of 2025 since I cheesed the system with that 3 years for $160 “deal” lol.

Not a huge Assassins Creed fan but I like the series from the games I’ve played. The setting could be cool so I’ll keep my eyes out for this in June.

Sounds like XBOX’s strategy of not monitoring teams and letting them do whatever they want… causes people not to work efficiently! What do you know! Xbox just can’t avoid the negative news right now and it’s just sad.

Remember XBOX just saying they started a new game preservation team? Meanwhile they just made Forza online only and now just cancelled all Redfall development right before the offline update?

Screw XBOX, they’re really doing a lot to make me not like them recently.

Ghostwire Tokyo and especially Hi-Fi Rush are two of the best games XBOX has had over the past few years… and they just delete the studio. Legit doesn’t make any sense to me.

Even financially, they’re getting all of their money from GamePass. And if you’re comparing games by hours played… well, yeah, of course “complete” and shorter single player experiences like these will have way less hours played then sandbox titles like Starfield and online centered games like Forza and Halo.

Just a thought, but maybe with GamePass, Microsoft doesn’t care for games without online components where they can’t sink hundreds of hours into and monetize.

Forza MotorSport and Horizon 5 are heavily monetized now and more “online-focused” then ever. Same with Halo. And Bethesda keeps shoving Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online down our throats. I have a feeling that Gears 6 is going to push online super hard and be heavily monetized. Maybe this is why Perfect Dark was in development hell for its first couple years… the devs had to switch things up to incorporate live-service elements and monetization?

I’m just theorizing and rambling now lol. This news just shocks me.

And XBOX’s poor management and decision causes another terrible thing to happen. Great.

Sony isn’t perfect either, but man… XBOX ain’t looking good. I thought going “third-party” was supposed to help these games and XBOX as a brand, not destroy them lol