Cakefish

Thank you for being a great resource for Xbox news/reviews/opinion pieces. Plenty of interesting things happening this year!

@OldGamer999 I was assuming it’ll be digital only regardless as it’s supposed to be a PC. Probably some sort of disc drive attachment sold separately for backwards compatibility purposes, but I’m not sure I forsee any new games being published physically.

That’s a shame. They can’t redesign the SOC so it will just be outdated architecture upon arrival as Switch 2 was. Darn

Very excited for Code Vein 2, so much so I already preordered it!

For Xbox specifically:

• Nier Automata
• Split Fiction (3x)
• Pumpkin Jack
• South of Midnight
• Lies Of P: Overture
• Little Nightmares 3
• Keeper
• Borderlands 4

Poor Split Fiction, so close to making the top 10 yet still too far 😭

Merry Christmas everyone ✨🎄✨

@Fiendish-Beaver haha you’re welcome! I really enjoyed the first game too, it seemed perfect for a sequel as there were definitely a few areas they could improve further and I thought the formula had so much potential. Hopefully they don’t cancel our preorders, but the pricing has been that way for literally months now, so they clearly aren’t paying close attention! Just don’t spread the word too far and wide 🤐😉

Merry Christmas btw!

8 in total (if we’re counting DLC separately, 7 if not). This year I purchased:

• Split Fiction
• Lies Of P
• Pumpkin Jack
• Lies Of P: Overture
• Code Vein 2
• Little Nightmares 3
• Once Upon A Katamari
• Borderlands 4

The reason I preordered Code Vein 2 so early is because there’s a pricing error on the Microsoft Store where the Deluxe Edition is being sold for Standard Edition pricing. £20 cheaper than other platforms. Don’t tell Bandai Namco 🤫

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah I don’t think it’s intentional bias though. I think it’s just natural unconscious bias from staffing niche outlets with a bunch of super fans of that brand and their particular style of games. You can see the ‘home advantage’ play out with NintendoLife too.

I think Split Fiction suffered from not having the novelty factor that It Takes Two benefitted from. Additionally it got quickly overshadowed by the Clair Obscur hype train.

Then when it later launched on Switch 2 it was overshadowed by Mario Kart World, Cyberpunk 2077, and Donkey Kong Bananza.

@Fiendish-Beaver it got 75 on PC and 79 on PS5 so potentially the Xbox reviewers were wearing nostalgia goggles whilst reviewing!

@Fiendish-Beaver ah I should’ve scrolled up before I commented. We made the same joke. Great minds think alike!

It’s actually 29.99%.

Switch 2 games mostly. I’m finishing up Kirby & the Forgotten Land and then will move onto Metroid Prime 4.

I could bring my Xbox with me too when I travel, but honestly there’s not much I’m currently playing there right now so not really worth the hassle.

I still need to finish Once Upon A Katamari, but otherwise I’m just waiting for Code Vein 2, which I’ve already preordered — pretty darn excited for that one!

Split Fiction, my beloved 🥰

My personal GOTY, no doubt about it!

Not perfect, but literally no game is. It’s just so creative, polished, refined, and fun. A real gem. A masterpiece of co-op gaming.

No because GTA 6 will win, assuming it’s not delayed into 2027.

On PC I played: God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (& Frozen Wilds), Horizon Forbidden West (& Burning Shores), REPO, PEAK, and Keeper.

On Xbox I played: Nier Automata (until the ‘real’ ending), Split Fiction (three times over), South of Midnight, Pumpkin Jack, Lies of P Overture, Little Nightmares 3, Borderlands 4 and a little bit of Once Upon A Katamari (but haven’t finished it yet).

On Switch 2 I played: Sonic x Shadow Generations, Kirby & the Forgotten Land (still need to finish the epilogue), and I intend to play Metroid Prime 4 over Christmas break.

So majority Xbox; maybe 50-60% in terms of playtime? PC maybe 35-45% ish? Switch 2 probably 5-10%.

@Fiendish-Beaver ahhh yes I see! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

@fabio1 the logic is that now that everything is an Xbox we can simply get our Xbox wrapped from Steam’s, PlayStation’s, and Nintendo’s year in reviews instead. Truly genius strategy you see!

@Fiendish-Beaver sorry I don’t understand the reference? 😅

I’m clearly out of touch with the kids, I’d never heard of it before the Black Friday sales data news nor seen any adverts or promotion for it anywhere. What an enigma.

@InfamousOrange yeah I’m gonna play Metroid Prime 4 that week 😁

@InfamousOrange yes, though they announced it’ll be be available in January so that it includes the entirety of December.

Ah they saw my complaint about rewards quests skewing the stats and took it personally.

Mixed bag year honestly

On the one hand; hardware cost increases way beyond the competition - boo! Also massive Game Pass price hike - boo!

On the other hand; the first party output was fairly decent overall (especially Keeper) and third party additions to Game Pass were pretty good too.

I feel 2026 needs to be better overall though. Less of the bad, more of the good please.

Keeper for sure. A great game. Not on par with Psychonauts 2 the XSX GOAT, but it’s a lovely little adventure in its own right.

I also tried South of Midnight and it was okay, but just okay — it didn’t blow me away like for other people.

We still haven’t even got Stellar Blade though, come on Sony, throw us a bone why won’t you.

Split Fiction is my GOTY

Keeper is my runner up

Fable

Gears of War too I suppose.

Mostly Fable though because that’s much more of a mystery currently.

@Kaloudz oh did they? I guess this must be after SOTR then. I got so used to the younger Lara that’s it’s weird seeing an older version again. Going to take some getting used to!

With Lara looking older I guess this is supposed to take place years after SOTR? Or is this a complete reboot narratively?

Oh come on, don’t boast about value when console hardware gets price rises beyond the competition, piss poor discounts on BF unlike the competition, Game Pass price hikes multiple years in a row, and chatter that the XSX successor will be an ultra premium device.

@ozkrmz it’s only a 3 year gap from the previous game. Usually I’d celebrate such a quick turnaround, but given the previous game was blatantly rushed out the door before it was ready it makes me very sceptical about this sequel. I want it to be good, but we’ll see.

No idea, I was asleep. I’m just catching up with all the announcements now. Tempting to say F just for the hostile European timing but nah I won’t be that petty lol

I feel nothing. Create all the flashy trailers you want. Proof will be in the pudding when it launches. I’m waiting for reviews and player feedback on performance and bugs. I was burnt by preordering the original, which was nothing like the trailers at launch, and I’m not doing that again.

Speaking of the original, they released a 2.5 update today, the ‘final major’ update. Also seems to have reverted the icon back to the original which is minor win as I never liked when they slapped an ugly ‘version 2.0’ banner on it.

I just realised that’ll be 9 years after SOTR. That’s crazy!

@MaccaMUFC yeah good point, probably a blessing in disguise as we don’t have to deal with all the adverts and filler haha

@FraserG at the very least make it Saturday night, so it’s not during the working week! I don’t why they struggle with this when Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo are always able to find a sweet spot for both sides of the Atlantic.

@Kramlar yeah mine expires early March. Still a holdover from the era of 1:1 Gold to Ultimate conversion. Those were good times.

My inner pedant is irrationally annoyed by the fact this article omits it’s actually on Friday for Europe and further east regions.

I love these end of year wrap ups usually, the data is fascinating. The Xbox always ends up being mostly useless for me though as I partake in the Microsoft Rewards quests, which mandates 15 minutes of a Game Pass game per day. So I boot up a game every day and let it idle until the task is complete. So my playtime stats are completely borked. In previous years I’ve had Age of Empires take top spot back when ‘Play with friends on PC’ was a thing. So I'm expecting a bunch of reward quest games clogging up the rankings and skewing the stats.

It’s tangential; but why do they capitalise the word franchise?

@kmtrain83 best way I can describe it is that it’s a solid enough prologue chapter to a bigger story that was promised but ultimately never told. Thus it simply ends up feeling incomplete, unfinished, and unsatisfying. I was more positive on the game until the announcement of no story expansions, that’s the point I soured on it in hindsight.

@McL92 Psychonauts 2 definitely lived up to my expectations and then some. Still my favourite first party Xbox game this generation by a wide margin.

For sure, backwards compatibility is super important in the digital era. Panzer Dragoon Orta, my beloved, don’t ever leave me…

Nope. The story simply fell flat at the end. The villain just monologues relentlessly all the way through the game, then you just defeat him and that’s pretty much it. Except oh wait, here’s the real threat! Surprise! Except it’s just going to be retconned or resolved offscreen like with all the other 343 games. Any hope I had of an interesting narrative died the moment they announced they had no plans for campaign DLC. Further to this, I was not a fan of just one biome. There was just overground and underground, very little aesthetic variety overall. I had hopes more would be added in DLC but nope. The disappointment I feel came from finding out the game would never get the expansion it needed and so it just feels unfinished, both narratively and thematically. It’s not a bad game, it’s just disappointing and doesn’t live up to the potential I think the series still has.

Dead as the dodo. All voluntarily self-inflicted. Microsoft could’ve offered discounts if they wanted to actually sell inventory. They just don’t care anymore 🤷

Really all over the place isn’t it? A couple years ago it was all about the amazing value that Series X|S and Game Pass offered. Now it’s just nothing but awkward hold music as we wait for the next generation to be announced.

I must be on Phil Spencer’s naughty list because I didn’t get one 💔

I’m surprised. Hollow Knight seemed like one of those forever games like Deep Rock Galactic.