@Rimebreaker Great insight! I work in the operations side of an IT consultancy and need to complete timesheets on any internal project I am involved in. First time round I was like “why the hell am I doing this? I’m a perm employee and management know exactly what I am working on”…Then I got more involved in the CapEx vs OpEx conversations and it all became clearer.

Dunno how true it is but googling suggests Xbox don’t rely on any kind of PMO function to track all this. It looks like it’s all handled by a program management layer who, I imagine have enough on their plate without getting bogged down in the budget minutia.

I’m going to try and wrap up the Eday campaign while I still have gamepass. I’m near the end of Act 4 and very bored of the repetition but by this point I feel I need to see it out. Maybe Act 5 will surprise me but aside from a 5 minute whizz in a helicopter it has just been 10 hours of non stop cover shooting. I will also continue Blood of Dawnwalker and Pragmata to break up the monotony.

@RTGX This was my takeaway from the comment section. I believe it was Windows Central who put a spotlight on this recently and they couldn’t be more Xbox positive if they tried. An Xbox exec has even come out and addressed it as an issue but somehow it is STILL the biased media’s fault.

Glad I can turn off the startup sound now. The new one is obnoxiously loud.

@Kaloudz I didn’t play the first but Rogue Legacy 2 is an all timer. If you like FPS games Sulfur is well worth a go mate.

I forgot Sulfur 1.0 was out today! I have been playing it in early access on Steam and it’s very good. You will get your ass kicked early on but once things start clicking and you hoard some decent gear it gets a bit easier. Not mentioned in the description above but it’s as much an extraction shooter as it is a roguelite…that might immediately put people off but it genuinely works really well.

Out of those FH6, First Light, Pragmata and Pokopia would all be on my list. But for originality and pure unadulterated joy I would be delighted if Big Walk takes home some awards this year.

I have bought Onimusha, my first disc since getting my series X in 2021 because of D2D. Play Anywhere has had the biggest impact on my purchases overall though. I’ve picked up more Xbox games this year than the previous 4 years combined.

I really like it! I was very pessimistic about the high scores and still think some are inflated but it’s definitely better than BO7 and MW3.

@Kaloudz Games tend to be cheaper on PC anyway. Not all of them of course but a good portion. Take FC27 for example which is £70 RRP on Xbox/PS (not taking into account EA play discount or sales) and £60 RRP on Steam.

Dunno why I’ve never given it much thought but Google suggests it might be because there’s more options to buy on PC with the different store fronts which makes pricing more competitive. I noticed it a few weeks ago on Xbox pc and assumed it was the new Cod price…it wasn’t till I looked on the Console today and though to myself “I swear that was £60 before”

@HelloCraigo @Banjo- it works!!!! £60 cod for everyone!

@HelloCraigo I wonder if it’s also to keep up with Steam pricing maybe? Well I had some MS reward points spare so I have taken £60 credit and bought the PC version. I don’t particularly want the launcher on PC but it seems to be letting me download the Series X version. I will find out if I am up Sh*ts creek in about 5 hours when it’s finished downloading 😅

@HelloCraigo Hey mate completely off topic but any idea why it’s £60 on PC and £70 on Xbox? If it’s Play Anywhere I don’t understand the difference.

@IllusiveMan “I liked it as I’ve liked all Gears but there’s little to no modernization in the gameplay loop, sure it looks the best it’s ever been, but the gameplay remains extremely similar to the very first game”

So glad I’m not the only one. First few hours were great with the focus on emergence…then every hour since has been the same thing with a different backdrop. A friend was asking me how it is and I said that if Gears 1 had the same graphical fidelity and you watched me playing them both side by side you would struggle to tell which is Eday. We are doing the exact same thing we were 20 years ago.

The old fashioned “more office presence = harder work” mindset has been debunked plenty of times. Hard work comes from good company culture, employees feeling valued and great management. Shockingly waking up 2 hours earlier to sit in traffic and then spend the day being distracted by colleagues is not everyone’s idea of peak productivity but of course Xbox has said it so people here will defend it.

As someone who subs intermittently for the odd game I am going to remain reasonably optimistic about this but it really depends how they cut it and if they still offer Ultimate as a catch all. When I sub for E Day I can play on PC, Series X and online Multiplayer which are the only things I care about. If those become 3 separate options I have to pay for individually I can see it becoming more expensive than a single ultimate subscription.

@Markatron84 they are pure trash and unfortunately there seem to be more and more of them coming out the woodwork.

@Markatron84 I got out of bed to give you a standing ovation

@strzelec errrr no it’s not. Disk is $5 - $7.50. Cartridge is $12 - $15. If you pretend that there is absolutely no supply chain costs for a disk but there are for cartridges you might be close but this is reality.

@strzelec Well for starters not every Switch Game has a physical edition…the top selling chart on their store is even split out into all releases and digital only. Secondly what does that tell you about the difference in sales between switch and Xbox/PS? If the players buy the games then it’s worth producing, if they don’t then it’s not.
And finally where on earth did you get the very specific and wildly inaccurate figure of 20x more expensive from? It costs around $5 - $7.50 to mass produce a disk which would mean it would cost Nintendo over $100 dollars to produce a cartridge.

@strzelec Buying a single disk is cheap. Mass producing them is not. You need infrastructure, employees, quality control, packaging, transport…it’s a whole supply chain that costs significantly more than $1 per disk. Google suggests production could cost as much as 10% of the retail price of the game and then there’s no guarantee you are actually going to shift all your stock which just creates a cost deficit and pointless plastic waste. I’m not a fan of the all digital future but it also makes complete sense to me why it is happening.

I’m trying to complete Eday while I have a month of gamepass but it’s becoming a slog. My feelings on it have soured drastically after I realised its going to give me nothing more aside the standard go to area > hide behind wall > pop out & shoot locust > move to next area….we have been doing this dance non stop in every single gears game and it has got increasingly stale with each iteration. New weapons, movement and floating ball sacks freshened it up for a bit but it all started to crack halfway through Act 3.

The cynic in me can’t help but think if the entire franchise was created by Ubisoft/EA it would be unanimously slated for the repetitiveness and lack of gameplay evolution across 2 decades and 7 games.

What I want is news on Helix and some concrete details about the actual “PC” nature of it.

What I expect is a dynamic theme and a limited edition controller.

@ZYDIO Well aside from the blatant homophobia who are you to say what does and doesn’t fit in Gears? Did you create the franchise? Did you write the story? Have you played a part in the development? Or are you just an Asmongold wannabe who gets triggered by the slightest hint of a different culture being represented in a game. I mean FFS it’s a 20 second part where a character looks at a photo and you think it should be kept to “Gay themed games”. The writers wanted it in there so it fits in the game. Don’t like it then go play Duke Nukem or Leisure suit Larry or something that fits in with your alpha male view of yourself.

Oh and don’t even get me started on the irony of you calling people selfish and narcissistic for including a character which MIGHT be gay…Jfc you people

Campaign 9 - I love that we get to experience E Day and the city is so detailed and interesting to explore. I like that there is modification to the weapons, armour and abilities (which I always forget to use). The characters and story are great and controls/gunplay feels fantastic with the modernisation. My main gripe is that its getting repetitive. Side missions have been entirely defending somewhere from a swarm and the main missions are either the same or just a series of firefights to get to your waypoint. I've just started Act 5 so maybe the final two will be offer up some variety but tbh I'm a bit disappointed that the overall flow of the campaign hasn't really evolved with the other aspects.

Horde 8 - I've never really enjoyed Horde outside of split screen with housemates back in the day so I am not the target audience for this. What I've played is good but I don't have the urge to play much more. No reflection on the mode its just not my thing.

Multiplayer 5 - A massive disappointment for me as someone who played 1,2 and 3 to death and had hoped this would be my go to MP game for a while. Its light on modes and maps which are mostly geared to shotguns. It almost seems pointless even having the Lancers in MP because no one uses them and by the time you have emptied an entire clip into someone they have run at you and gnashered you in the face. Could be a case of skill issue git gud but that is hard when, by the time you come to play on 6th the lack of Skill/Level based matchmaking means you are playing against level 80+ no lifers who have been doing nothing else but practice their shotgunning since early access started. I haven't tried ranked yet so hopefully that puts me in with fellow rubbish players and I can actually improve but its been a poor first impression.

Overall 8/10 for me. I've said here before I was burnt out on the Gears cover shooting formula and while E-Day makes some great modern changes the overall gameplay loop hasn't evolved in 20 years. The story is great but I am a gameplay first kind of guy and this is essentially a prettier version of the same game I was playing in 2006.

Its an awesome game which I am very much enjoying but if Xbox are going to give me the option to sub to GP for one month rather than buy it then I am going to do that. If I liked the multiplayer more I would buy to continue playing on PC but it is a frustrating sweaty gnasher-fest that I just cannot get onboard with.

Whilst performance improvements are welcome they really need to work on adding basic QoL features to the app if they want to even think about competing with Steam/GOG. It’s baffling they have been at this for nearly 15 years and yet I can’t group my games, see user reviews, compare achievements with my friends or even search the store for anything more than a title. Their PC app has less functionality than the Xbox Series dashboard.

This is on my Steam wishlist but not sure I want to start a metroidvania the week before a new Castlevania releases. Damn there’s too many games at the moment!

Gotta love a return to form for Gears and just so happens to release when I have some time off work. Very excited now

Hopefully this is just for the gamepass ad tier or one of the many random unused patents these companies put through all the time. However looking at Windows and Bing I worry it’s just Microsoft being Microsoft.

Oh wow those are some great scores. Might have to pick this up

@Mr-Cage That’s fair and btw I’m not saying I think you or anyone else should care I’m just explaining why I think some people do.

Don’t even get me started on the culture war folks. There’s thousands of games already they can enjoy if they absolutely must have a straight white male lead and a damsel in distress. The 1% of games which include a bit of diversity really aren’t raining on their parade or “destroying gaming” as much as they like to pretend.

@Mr-Cage If my local Lidl shuts down I will go the extra half mile to Aldi where I can buy the same groceries. If Octopus energy goes bankrupt I will go to any one of the other 20 providers available to me for the same service. I have no end of options for clothing stores both responsibly made and otherwise. However if a studio which makes my favourite games shuts down then that’s it for their IP. Whilst I see what you are saying, people can care about more than one thing at a time and can have empathy towards people who’s art they respect. If your favourite band/musician died in a car accident surely you would be somewhat upset that you will never hear any new music from them or at least sad that something terrible has happened to someone who created something which resonated with you?

Gaming is a hobby which we all love but it’s a hobby made possible by the human beings who create them. If the industry keeps going on this trajectory then less talented and innovative people are going to want to get involved and quality will drop. So yeh I’m not crying myself to sleep over it but I appreciate stuff like this has wider ramifications for my hobby than simply a bunch of strangers losing their jobs. Anyway I will get off my soapbox now.

P.S Great response to chillando one of the good ones 👏

Always good to see permanent price drops on digital storefronts. Good on them

@Coletrain Same I have been using Loaded for years. I have only had one instance where a code didn’t work on steam but I provided screenshots as evidence so got my money back. Loaded is technically labelled a “grey market” and not an official reseller so there’s every chance Xbox could clamp down on them but as long as they still work and I can get games significantly cheaper I will use them.

Scalebound looked good. It did not look good enough for us to still be talking about it nearly a decade later though.

@Mr-Cage I don’t know enough about game development or marketing to comment on the right or wrong way but I’m guessing they just haven’t been ready to show stuff until now. If anything, the hype around GTA means they need to get timing and marketing perfect because if they show gameplay that looks like janky dog mess they are going to put a lot of people off.

Look at ES6…that game was announced in 2018, four years before GTA6 and we still haven’t even had a cinematic trailer let alone gameplay. I don’t think it’s secrecy or hype building they just aren’t ready to show us anything and I imagine when they do it will be pretty close to release which seems to happen much more nowadays.

@Mr-Cage While I see what you’re saying about the Netflix deal it was only for 6 hours. I could understand the frustrations if it was permanently locked behind a Netflix sub but if someone is signing up to Netflix because they can’t wait 6 - 12 hours to watch a 30 min trailer that’s surely on them. As far as I’m aware streamers were still allowed to post it the moment it hit Netflix as well so there was still ways to watch it within the hour. I don’t necessarily agree with the approach but I also wouldn’t have lost any sleep having to wait till it appears on YouTube. It’s basically free money to Rockstar for the sake of 6 hours and it’s rare you will find a business that passes up free money in favour of taking the moral high ground.

This was the most exciting game this month for me so I am glad it’s reviewing well. Can’t wait to play tomorrow.

@Fiendish-Beaver Agreed but 2025 was a particularly good year for GPU which automatically makes this one look worse by comparison. By this point in 2025 we had Avowed, Sniper Elite Resistance, South of Midnight, Oblivion Remastered, Atomfall, Expedition 33, Wuchang and THPS 3+4 with Outerworlds 2, Ninja Gaiden 4 and Black Ops 7 on the horizon. That's not even taking into account all the great indies that went on. Considering it costs more right now than it did Aug 2025 it has been pretty lacklustre for day one overall.

The crimson one is very cool but I wouldn’t dream of spending £85 on a standard controller no matter how good it looks.

Having basically no hype for E Day I was surprised to come away from the beta pretty excited for the full release. I’m a fan of the new movement as I feel like I have more direct control of the character. I like the new horde mode because I can extract and don’t have to dedicate an hour to the same game which, due to my awful attention span, I used to find quite tedious. I only played a couple of death match games on MP but I enjoyed what I played so all in all it’s gone from a months GPU sub for the campaign to a likely purchase for me.

I have been looking forward to this for a while so glad it’s reviewing well. Will buy on Steam next week when I have some free time.

The first which was also the first game I played on my 360! Happy memories

@kungfumongoose I’m with you on this. I played the trilogy to death on 360 but by 4 and 5 I was burnt out on the formula. I’m actually more excited for E-Day after the previews knowing it’s not just the same old Gears we have been playing for the last 20 years.

@BacklogBrad I can see them making it open with hefty caveats. I reckon either it’s going to be ridiculously priced so they can make a profit on units sold or they lock other storefronts behind a subscription fee. It’s never made sense to have competing stores on your first party device, especially when one of those stores is Steam which beats out your platform in nearly every single way.

@RadioHedgeFund I feel they all added new mechanics to the genre, some more successfully than others and games like Deus Ex can be completed without barely shooting a gun. What I don’t understand is how the FPS genre can progress without at least some shooting…it’s in the name. Isn’t that like saying the Sim Racer hasn’t evolved since Gran Turismo because they are just about driving cars around? There’s trying something new and then just inventing a completely different genre. The moment you take all shooting out of an FPS it’s just an FP I guess.

Man you gotta give me Titanfall at least 😅…the parkour might be inspired by other games (Mirrors Edge actually another example) but If dropping and piloting a 12 foot mech into the battlefield during a game of Domination doesn’t differentiate itself from Perfect Dark I don’t know what will.

@RadioHedgeFund I respectfully disagree there has been no experimentation or innovation in FPS since 2000. Just a few examples

Titanfall - Mechs (woo) and parkour traversal
Rainbow Six Vegas - proper cover system and team commands
Ready or not - Takes Rainbows team commands/milsim style and ramps it up to 100
Bulletstorm - Made the way you killed enemies matter with a style system
Team fortress 2 - laid the ground work for pretty much every hero shooter clone
Red Faction - Introduced destructible environments which were insane for the time
Roboquest - not the first I don’t think but in general FPS roguelikes have become their own massive sub genre
Escape from Tarkov - popularised(ish) the extraction shooter as a standalone genre.
Superhot - completely turns the shooter on its head with a brilliant time mechanic
Deus Ex / Dishonoured / Prey / Deathloop / Bioshock - immersive sim style games that let you tackle objectives in different ways aside from just run and gun (although still an option)

Id argue there’s been a ridiculous amount of innovation taken place to varying degrees of commercial success. Even more if you’re willing to include games on the FPS periphery like Portal and Powerwash Simulator.