RegnumSolipsi

Was never a fan. Red Dead Revolver was great for us time, but the Redemption games never held my attention. I tried to pay both and gave up within a couple hours.

@datamonkey I could never go to PS5. The controller hurts my hands and isn't sustainable for long term gaming.

PC also has the benefit of Play Anywhere, so at least not starting at zero. I've also been working on a Steam Collection for several years.

@Fiendish-Beaver I agree about Andromeda. So many games get 2nd chances after being patched (Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky...) but Andromeda was never given that 2nd chance. There were some not-so-great elements like exploring the vaults got repetitive and the story pacing was a bit uneven, but for the most part I had a blast with the new ship, new crew, and new Ally and Enemy races. It was a step back from the trilogy, but it was still a serviceable experience. Dragon Age: Vanguard and Anthem, however... Not inspiring.

@Fiendish-Beaver

I've been a fan of every Halo game to some degree and I am impressed with what we've seen of the remake, but I'm still waiting to see how far they take it in changes (Like will they recycle the later levels or will we actually see them redesigned to match Bungie's original intentions for the game.) I'm most excited for the 3 new missions they're adding, but I honestly feel like it's going to be more of a tease for what we could've had with a new game.

Waiting for the new Mass Effect is literally giving me anxiety because I want it to be great, but we saw what Andromeda was (which I was a fan of for the most part) and we see how far Bioware has fallen in the last decade. I think that's a large part of the reason why I want Exodus to be successful. If they pull it off, it'll be the Mass Effect sequel fans deserve.

@Fiendish-Beaver Exodus is honestly the only game still in production that I can say I'm genuinely excited for. I'm doing my best to temper expectations, but it's the first time in a long time that I can say I'm genuinely hyped for a game and not just going through the motions like I am with GTA, Elder Scrolls, and Halo.

I don't expect things from Microsoft and Xbox at this point. I have been one of the most hardcore and avid supporters of the brand for the last 23 years, but this year has been a fast and firm hammering of nails in the coffin and I have done the unthinkable and began transitioning to PC. I dislike PC gaming, but I don't hate myself enough to keep enduring the middle finger that Xbox has become either.

I have more than likely reached the point where I may drop out of gaming entirely. I might dabble with a game or two (I could never walk away from Halo) but the thrill has gone it's hard to be excited for anyone on the horizon at this point. Hoping Exodus changes my mind, but Perfect Dark being cancelled and Fable being sure to follow soon hits hard.

It's so hard to pick. 360 had an amazing launch with so many great games! Kameo blew my mind with how many trolls it had on screen at once, Condemned was atmospheric and spooky, Perfect Dark was a blast to play online with friends (I loved the Counter Strike-esque Dark Ops mode), PGR3 was absolutely gorgeous, CoD2 was chaotic and the last great entry in the series, Most Wanted is still the best entry in the NFS series and even King Kong was a well designed game and I loved transitioning between the hudless FPS gameplay and the Kong Brawler segments (The first time I played its demo I didn't even know the game had transitioned from cutscene to gameplay. The graphics were impressive for the time, as well.)

If I had to narrow it down I would probably say Condemned because it's the one I revisit most frequently, but it's really not possible to choose one over the others because they all brought so much to the table.

@pepsilover2008

Not much of a multiplayer guy anymore, but I will say Halo 5 had the best multiplayer in the series since Halo 2. The campaign was nothing to write home about, but the multiplayer was worth it. Even despite the loot pack system (which I never had to spend actually money on some in game credits were plentiful), Warzone was fantastic and sorely missed in Infinite. The gameplay changes felt good and really worked with the Halo formula without changing up the classic style too much.

Dropped GamePass because of the price hike BS, so I went ahead and bought Crackdown 3 and Psychonauts 2. Want to snag Master Chief Collection, as well, but apparently it's not Play Anywhere and I'm starting to migrate over to PC in anticipation of not buying a next gen console, so I'm holding out hope somebody has MCC on sale for PC soon.

Nothing else of interest for me in this sale, though. Waiting for better prices on TESIV and Split Fiction still.

Armatus might be worth keeping an eye on. Zero interest in anything else shown here, though. Not really surprised.

I would kill for the Blades dashboard to make a comeback. I'm so damn tired of being advertised to and bombarded with constant images and graphics. When are they going to learn that being advertised to is going to cost them more sales than it will gain them? I intentionally go out of my way to not buy things that constantly harass me in commercials. The blades design gave it a 'look inside the console' vibe while modern dashboards are just visual vomit.

A little more obscure, but I also miss the Xbox 360's Netflix theater mode. Being able to sync up with friends and watching movies and shows at the same time was great and having the little shadowed Avatar characters at the bottom was a fun touch.

• Coalition: Gears E-Day will be delayed to 2027 to give Halo room for its launch.
• Double Fine: Will have a small project ready to launch later 26/Early 27.
• Halo Studios: Halo will be released on November 15th regardless of whether the game is ready to launch or not. It probably will not be.
• InXile: Clockwork Revolution will most likely be cancelled and the studio shut down. May be quiet for the next year and won't be cancelled until the year after.
• Ninja Theory: Project Mara will get a cinematic reveal with no release date in sight.
• Obsidian: Outer Worlds DLC & Grounded 2 support possibly up to the point of launching the full game.
• Playground: Fable will be cancelled and Playground will be restricted to Forza Horizon development. FH6 will likely release in 2026.
• Rare: More Sea of Thieves seasonal support. Possible a new large-scale Tall Tales campaign.
• Turn 10: Shut down
• Undead Labs: State of Decay 3 cancelled and studio shut down.
• World's Edge: Age of Empires 2 support. Maybe an Age of Empires V announcement.
• Arkane: Quiet in 2026. Blade will be cancelled and Arkane will be shut down in 2027.
• Bethesda: Another Fallout 76 Expansion along with the final Starfield expansion before switching gears to fully focus on Elder Scrolls VI. TESVI won't get new content until 2027. Fa
• Machinegames: Wolfenstein 3 will get a cinematic reveal trailer.
• ZeniMax Online: New Elder Scrolls Online Expansion.
• Activision-Blizzard: Call of Duty 24.

Cancelled. Can't justify paying $30 a month to play 3 games a year. I might fire up Essential eventually since I need it to play Sea of Thieves online, but I bought a new laptop recently and may just make the permanent switch to PC gaming going forward, so it might not be necessary since PC doesn't charge for online play.

Still waiting for some campaign updates and expansions. Some world events and side-story content sure would be nice. Really anything to breathe some life into that giant empty world they built...

As somebody who's been with the series since Day 1, I give it 9/10. It didn't surpass Halo 2 or Combat Evolved (nothing ever will), but it definitely lands a nice 3rd place spot for me thanks to the fantastic writing that finally brought in the lore from the novels and what ended up being my favorite visual aesthetic in the series. The sound work and musical composition were a bit lacking and I hate that they cancelled S2 of Spartan Ops and killed the plot with a crappy comic and a quick moment in the beginning of Halo 5, but otherwise I loved everything about H4.

The Didact didn't get enough screentime to really make a great villain, either, but he was intended to be a threat throughout the trilogy and their wussing out with Halo 5's direction change is more at fault than H4 not writing him well. I also wish Jul 'Mdama had been given more screentime and played some kind of role in the main campaign, but I get he was supposed to be the main antagonist of the S-Ops mode.

It would be neat if they went back in a remake and added the H5 Soldier units and a couple other original units to mix up the dynamic a bit, as well.

Meh. GoY doesn't interest me and I have zero intention of playing it if it ever comes to Xbox. If they want to get a PS franchise going on Xbox, I would much rather see the Horizon series, Death Stranding 2 ( waiting patiently because this one is inevitable), or a Resistance Remastered trilogy. Those are pretty much the only things I want from the Playstation family besides MGS4 (which is all but confirmed with the MGS Volume 2 collection.)

Haven't played Hades 2 yet (haven't beat the first one yet because I'm not very good at Roguelites) and don't have a co-op partner for Split Fiction, but out of the rest of this list the only game I actually like is Death Stranding 2. Only played for an hour so far, but going off of that and how amazing the first game was, it's a safe bet for me. Can't wait to pay more when the Xbox versions launches.

@fatpunkslim What it looks like? It looks like every other COD ever made. It's BO6 with a fresh coat of paint slapped on it. This has been the car for every release in the series for the past decade.

I've always been in favor of the Halo franchise dropping PvP, but it was always in the interest of receiving longer, larger, louder, and more epic campaigns on par with games like Deus Ex and Half-Life. The original Halo Campaign can be beat in 3 hours once you know what you're doing, which after 25 years, most of us know what we're doing. Without significant changes to the level design, that's not going to change much with the new game even with 3 new levels.

I'm perfectly fine with them cutting the PvP, but they need to add some more substantial changes and upgrades, both in classic design changes and adding more mutations to the campaign that change up each playthrough and add to the replay value

Visually stunning and I love that they've added some extra depth to the level design, but I feel like reusing the original audio of the first game was a miss and if they were going to insist on remaking the 1st game, they could've at least altered the levels to offer a different experience. They could've kept the general aesthetic of the levels, but I would've liked something like the SvP3 mod where they extended the levels with new sections and added to the gameplay experience. CE was great for its time, but it's level design was basic and reusing levels for the 2nd half of the game isn't excusable today. Maybe they will change that element, but the Silent Cartographer playthrough looked pretty 1:1 so far.

I think the best part of this project will be the 3 new prequel levels they're adding to the beginning of the game and I'm hopeful they'll add some more content between existing missions that tie in with the novel. That would make up for my earlier grievance about the 1:1 level recreation.

Regardless, it's a Halo game with 1000gs for me to unlock, so I'll be there day 1 to keep up my 100% Halo Completion streak.

@ElectricWizard Helpful at times, but admittedly sometimes I had no clue what the piece was I was looking for and when it's a tiny little speck on a tiny little platform in a huge level, it can be near impossible to find. My biggest hope with the new game is that they've divided that list into sections so we can at least narrow down where missing sections might be. That would be the best QOL change from the 1st game I can think of.

@awp69 I think give it time. It's only been a couple weeks. Most people are probably still riding their current subscription and some are even stacked out for several months. They announced the hike right after my monthly renewal, so I'm still technically on for another week before it ends. We'll see how it looks going into the new year. It might be vocal minority, but I definitely know there are a bunch of people in the communities I frequent who claim to be cancelling. Time will tell.

I'm definitely cancelling mine, though. I average playing 2-3 games a year on the service. At the previous price point it was justified, bit now it's literally cheaper to just buy those 2-3 games.

Ironically I feel like the developers should thank Microsoft for this one. GamePass was the entry point for the first game in the series and people fell crazy in love with it. Now thanks to the jacked up GP costs and people cancelling their subscriptions, I imagine a lot of people will be flat-out buying the sequel.

I never bought the first game (other than the expansions), but PWS2 will definitely be a Day 1 purchase since my subscription runs out at the end of the month and I won't be coming back. Well played FuturLab... Well played.

I keep hearing this word "innovative" thrown around. I don't think people understand what it means anymore. The new ROG ALLY X is not innovative. The device is literally an upgraded version of Asus's existing line which was already essentially a knockoff of the Steamdeck. They added software that let's you play GamePass games natively, but it's not much different than being able to play it through your Steamdeck Browser and even my phone has been able to play GamePass games for years.

If they had created a device that could natively play my full Xbox library on top of its existing PC features, at least that would've been innovative, but for whatever reason they've decided not to go that route.

Banner week. Shame Vampire Masquerade 2 sucks according to reviews, but might be worth checking out down the road when it gets a pricedrop. In the meantime I'm gonna be plenty busy with Ninja Gaiden 4, Powerwash Simulator 2, and Jurassic World Evolution 3. That should be a wrap on my 2025. See you all in 2026!

Double Fine of one of my favorite studios and I really want to like this game, but it just doesn't feel like a DF title. It lacks the trademark humor that DF is known for and gameplay in the first hour I managed to play is so limited it feels more like you're playing an interactive screensaver.

I love Walking Sims, but I typically need dialog or some kind of plot to keep my brain engaged with them and so far this game has been just a bunch of walking and staring at the pretty visuals. I fell asleep 3 times in the first hour and had to put it down.

I won't say it's a bad game for people who like to relax with this kind of thing, but it lacks any kind of engaging elements and is definitely something I would rather just have auto-playing in the background while I listen to Lofi beats on YouTube.

Sounds like the Campaign is a big bag of lukewarm meh. Guess I'll be passing on this one, too. Not really a surprise, though. The only BF games that actually had serviceable campaigns were the Bad Company's and Hardline.

So far the games I've enjoyed in 2025 are:

1. Oblivion Remastered
2. DOOM: Dark Ages
3. Avowed

Hopefully I'll be adding a few more games to this list. Still got Ninja Gaiden 4, Keeper, Jurassic World Evolution 3, and Powerwash Simulator 2 to look forward to.

Soo... 1st Party games are now guaranteed in the first year, but not on Day 1 if you go Premium? Am I understanding that correctly? Because there's no way in hell I'm paying $30 a month for Ubishit and a subscription to a game I don't ever plan to play. Hell, I'm not even interested in most of the 1st-party games we have announced so far. Perfect Dark and Everwild cancelled, Fable nowhere to be found, Halo being more irrelevant with ever new title... Ninja Gaiden 4 and Powerwash Simulator 2 are the only GP games I have left on my wishlist this year. I'll ride it out long enough to play NG4, but I'm out after that.

Yeah... Think I'm gonna pass. Not into handheld gaming, so I think I'll just wait for the Xbox Steam Machine. One machine fusing my Xbox and PC game libraries would be a dream come true.

Fatal Frame 2 looks neat. Still want to see gameplay for Aniimo before I'm sold, but I'm hopeful it's going to be a fun take on what Pokemon Arceus should have been. Hopefully smoother and less crafting focused than Palworld is.

Neat. Really hoping Pragmata sticks the landing after so long in development hell. It's been at the top of my want list ever since the first trailer dropped. I'm ready for this thing to launch.

Split Fiction has been 10% off since before the game launched. Is it really even on sale at this point? Just give it a permanent price drop, then I'll wait until a 50% off sale.

Doubt there will be anything interesting for me at this show, so I don't plan on watching it. I'll check the recap on here after it's all said and done, but I'm not holding my breath for anything.

@Millionski That's funny because I'm exactly the opposite. If it's just a pure Xbox console, I'm out after 24 years of support. Only way they can get me to buy is if they give us a PC/console hybrid that has full access to Steam, GOG, etc... but still retains access to our existing Xbox libraries as well.

With everything going multiplatform, there no incentive to stay on Xbox going forward, especially when nothing Sony publishes comes to Xbox and everything is ending up on PC now. Buying an Xbox console now and intentionally limiting access to games is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

@TrollOfWar Solo Slooping... It's a hard life, but it's honest work. Lol

@Vipor007

I don't remember the Haunted House taking me too long. For me the most painful was the Warhammer 40K set. In particular the large ship just dragged on forever. Also the large Mechs in 40K and FFVII, but I love the attention to detail on those ones.

I'm always disappointed we didn't get packs for series like Halo or Sea of Thieves. An 'Xbox Moments' set from their biggest franchises would be great. I would love to see them pluck an Outpost straight out from SoT and maybe the Scarab from Halo 3.

@TrollOfWar

Same! TA says I have 1,100 hours, but it's hard to tell how many hours I have played since I don't believe Xbox tracked hours played for the first couple years after it released. I've been playing since it was in Alpha and grinding out the Achievements and Commendations ever since the game launched, but I tend to play it in phases. I'll play it almost exclusively for 7 or 8 months, than stop playing for a year or two and come back to it after they've dropped a bunch of new content. It's practically a new game every time I come back.

https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Sea-of-Thieves/achievements?gamerid=425383&cb=235

@Vipor007

Loved the DLC in PWS. Only one that didn't interest me was Wallace & Gromit. Alice In Wonderland was definitely my favorite pack along with some of the Freebies that got thrown in like the Cruise Ship and Aquarium.

Sea of Thieves and (time permitting) a little bit of Sir Whoopass and Powerwash Simulator.

I mean it's probably games from Japanese Devs and maybe Horizon 6. Nothing for me to get out of bed for. There are maybe a dozen J-Games on my list of series that I enjoyed. They've already revealed Ninja Gaiden 4 and RE9 and I doubt they're announcing sequels to Phantom Crash or Breakdown, so I really don't care.

Nothing for me this month. Probably take a little break from taking before October comes in and wrecks my free time.

Neat. Cold Fear was a great RE4 clone from a time when Xbox didn't get any RE love.

I Am Alive was a neat idea and poorly executed, but I also remember it being marketed as a big launch and it ended up getting stuck in development hell until it ended up downsizing into an Xbox Arcade title. I would love to see them bring it back as a big AA franchise in line with games like State of Decay.

Child of Even was great as a Kinect title. Don't see much purpose for it releasing without a Kinect to go along with it, though. It's an on-rails shooter built for lightgun mechanics and apparently lightguns don't work on modern TVs, hence the lack of one with the House of the Dead games...

Just once. I'm the type of person who complete campaigns multiple times (See Halo, Mass Effect, Titanfall 2, etc...) but honestly none of the Gears games were that good. They were okay experiences worth a playthrough and I finished the first 4 main games, but I never had any interest in going through any of them a second time.

***** finally!!! Been waiting forever for an Xbox release. Now I can finally sell off my Kickstarter PS4 copy and play it on my console of choice.

Considering they went and cancelled my most anticipated game a couple months ago, frankly I don't give a damn anymore. Doing they're going to announce anything new or noteworthy at this point and I'm on blackout mode for the last couple games I plan to play this year. Don't want any spoilers for NG4 or Keeper

If there's one thing I've learned from playing with the Switch, the Steamdeck, and even going back and playing on devices like the Gameboy Advance and the PS Vita, it's that handheld devices are absolutely miserable to use. It's always an issue with the screen being too small, the device being too clunky and heavy, and/or the controls always being too cramped and uncomfortable for me to hold.

The closest I've ever come to enjoying handheld gaming as an adult is the 8BitDo Mobile Game Controller because it's essentially just an Xbox controller I can plug my phone into. Screen is still a bit on the small side with this method, but it eliminates the weight and cramped controls issue at least.

@Tyrant_T103

Last I checked there was a major exodus with most of the core team having been laid off and replaced to the point they even rebranded the studio.

@Fiendish-Beaver

Lol. Not sure how I complete missed that post. My bad.

Even more importantly, there are two new books on the horizon. Edge of Dawn releases in December and is a direct continuation from the events of Halo Infinite and Rubicon Protocol. Then in March we're also getting Waypoint Chronicles: Volume 1, which compiles all of the short stories featured on the Waypoint Website, which offer expansive lore on a diverse range of events and elements throughout the universe.

I'm psyched for both and ready to continue the events of Halo Infinite in particular!