This seems like a whole lot of nothing. It's the same game, folks.

MW4 is a fantastic game. Campaign is excellent, DMZ is a substantial new game mode that has real potential, and MP is a really solid effort.

MP maps are a little lacking at the moment, but they'll be new maps soon enough. I've just been spoiled playing MW3, which has like 50 TDM maps on rotation.

Campaign is excellent. Best campaign since 2019.

DMZ is interesting, if a little dull. I probably just need more time invested and the right team.

Multiplayer feels great, but we could definitely use some more maps. I'm also insanely disappointed by how much bunny hopping is going on. I really wish they'd introduce a game mode where jumping is seriously nerfed. The "White Men Can't Jump" mode, if you will.

Sorry, The Walking Dead, but The Wolf Among Us is, by far, the best Telltale game. The vibes, writing, art direction, and performances are off the chart.

A remaster probably won't fix the janky controls, but it's well worth putting up with for this stellar noir mystery.

I think this is fun! One step above what PlayStation did with the retro dashboards for the 25th anniversary.

@AverageGamer That's a fair point. I don't typically play racers, so that wasn't on my radar.

I don't have a Series, so I can't play this, but I'm so stoked to hear that Gears is back in a big way. How long has it been since Xbox released a 10? Too long.

As a paying gamer, I'd take a hard pass on this.

But... if something like this is offered for a free Gamepass tier, I could see the appeal. It's a way for people who otherwise couldn't afford games to get into the hobby. There's no such thing as a free lunch, so when something is called "free," you know the bill is just being obfuscated.

That said, keep that s**t out of anything you're already paying money for.

@Xbox-Memory Oh, I totally understand where you're coming from. I was just saying that the developer may have been stuck between a rock and hard place. Either close the studio and not release anything or release the game unfinished, hoping that the small amount of sales will generate enough money to pay everyone to finish the game.

@Xbox-Memory From a consumer standpoint, I agree that it's not cool to release a broken game. It seems deceptive.

But from a developer standpoint, especially an independent studio, they might not have a choice if they're out of money. It's either release the game as a broken mess, get a little influx of cash from the sales to keep the lights on and fix it post launch, or just close up shop altogether.

Love to see this kind of communication.

With companies this size, it's hard, if not impossible, to tell if this really is a cultural shift at Xbox or simply a business tactic to take advantage of the moment, but it still just shows how cold and imperious Sony has become. I hope Xbox keeps this kind of communication up.

Only played a little yesterday, but I really liked it! I just vastly prefer IW CoD games to Treyarch, so this was always going to speak to me more than the Black Ops games. I honestly didn't like BO6 that much and didn't even bother with BO7. MW3 has been my jam for the last few years.

I love how they've changed the hit-scan to line up with your reticle and balanced it with more gun kick. The maps seem great, too. Lots of lanes and verticality. Guns, unsurprisingly, feel excellent and character movement, for the most part, feels heavier than BO, but responsive.

Honestly, very excited for this release.

Sledgehammer would be a great fit for Halo. They continuously get the short stick with the CoD pipeline.

@Rangers420 According to whom? Sony didn't confirm lifetime sales of Yotei using the same windowing that Alinea estimated. Alinea estimated 4.8 million as of June 2026 and Sony reported 3.3 million as of November 2025. Not hard to imagine another 1.5 million in over half a year.

@Sindayl I'm sure that's all true. I think we're both on the same page here. Power on paper is completely meaningless. What matters is what the end output is. Arguing over whether a Series X or PS5 is more powerful is pretty fruitless. The reality for this Halo release is that all versions look great. If you need Digital Foundry to do a 4x zoom and pixel count to tell you which looks better, then it really doesn't matter where you play.

@TheGameThrifter On paper, the Xbox Series X has some more horsepower than the base PS5, but it has been widely reported that that is a very incomplete picture of how games perform on console. Xbox may have more teraflops and compute units, but PS5's compute units are faster, as is the SSD. PS5 also has better memory architecture.

Nobody wants an open-world Halo game...

That would be the Halo CE demo of the Cartographer mission I played over and over and over again on my Mac. 😮

Probably this one:

Love the look of this game. Love Lovecraftian stuff. I just don't know if I have a committed crew to join the adventure. Maybe someday down the road.

@MrStark No amount of security measures can secure your account. You can just use social engineering to trick a CS agent to make all the necessary changes to get access to an account with only a few pieces of trivial information. This literally was just chronicled by Colin Moriarty on Sacred Symbols with regard to his PSN account.

The real problem is that there are no mechanisms for purchase transference in the event of a compromised account. If the only remedy for a hacked account is to permanently delete it or suspend it, there must be mechanisms in place to not penalize the rightful owner of the original account.

Companies aren't going to solve this without legal or governmental pressure, unfortunately.

@dreadful It's too bad because Marathon is a fantastic game. Too niche and too expensive to make, but fantastic nonetheless.

$70 for each game with map packs is hilarious. Still prefer the old CoD structure before battle passes and free post launch content???

@Tasuki Based on what? Splitgate servers are still up. It may not be a barnburner, but it's trucking along.

It's way too early to have any real opinions about Sharma, but it does seem like she's been provided a lot of rope to get things done. I'm very hopeful she can right the ship and get Xbox back on track as a major contender in the console space.

@FraserG I'm pretty sure the size restriction on PlayStation is a compliance thing with Sony; similar to their restrictions on external assets being used in mods. A huge downside to playing Bethesda games on PlayStation, but it is what it is.

@Banjo-

Sony has backtracked and changed plans more times than any other

Say what? You actually wrote that on an Xbox website? Microsoft is the reigning champ when it comes to backtracking.

I've been playing Remnant 2 on PS5 this past week and absolutely love it. Don't let the bad cutscenes scare you off - the gameplay is phenomenal!

Surprised lowering the price of consoles wasn't higher up.

I platinum'd this bad boy and still log in regularly. I really hope EA recognizes the amazing game they have here and make another.

I don't think that a lot of people don't understand the disconnect between a reviewer's perspective and an average consumer. Reviewers are looking for unique experiences to break up the monotony of playing game after game after game. Average consumers want a game they can sink their teeth into and, typically, want something a little more engaging. Neither take is wrong.

The modern brain-rotted internet mind thinks that a different opinion is automatically invalidated, paid for, evidence of some bigotry in one way or another, or something else that makes you feel morally or intellectually superior.

@FraserG Myst released in '93, just FYI.

@Jenkinss I also prefer the real actors (especially since Atrus is played by one of the Cyan founders), but it's well worth the trade-off for the drop-dead gorgeous real-time gameplay.

Riven is well, well worth your time. The world and lore of the fifth age is so freaking cool. Save yourself some headaches and look up the D'ni number system, though. They try to teach you in-game, but it's base 25, so good luck with that.

If Campaign Evolved is executed well, they should probably continue with remaking the trilogy, adding MP back in while they're at it, but I'd also really like to see a new game that isn't about Chief. ODST is probably my favorite campaign, so I'd selfishly love something similar to that or maybe even a third person game where you play as an ODST.

I've never really liked the ball, so I'll go with the OG logo!

I'd buy a Series S if it only had a disc drive to play my old 360 games. No way in Hell I'm buying an X just for the drive.

Xbox has such a weird "let's make our CEO a celebrity" thing going.

"The trailer was done by Blur, it was all pre-rendered, it represented a concept — our thoughts at the time of what might be cool to explore in State of Decay 3..."

Sounds like that should have been an internal pitch-deck, not a f**king CGI game announcement trailer.

Do these people never actually learn? Like, seriously?

I have MW2019 on PlayStation and would love to reinstall, but I have the disc version and it's a legitimate nightmare to get it installed. They reworked how they broke up file packages and the game basically doesn't work unless you install EVERYTHING, even the useless stuff. If the digital version ever drops to like $10, I'll probably pick it up again, but, alas, not before.

@Tasuki Completely disagree. MW2019 is my favorite CoD in the whole franchise. Absolutely love the gunplay, maps, and campaign. Personally, I've never been a fan of how the Treyarch games feel to play.

I've seen Starship Troopers over a dozen times - absolutely love it! Will probably have to pick this up.

The movie satirizes the novel's more "pro-military" themes, but I recommend the novel all the same. It's really good! Just make sure you're intelligent enough to understand that you don't have to agree with how a fictional civilization operates in order to enjoy a story. 😉

Advanced Warfare had a nice version of this, too.

Honestly, they should just call it the "Xbox." But, knowing Microsoft, they'll name it something nonsensical.

"Medieval Bohemia has never looked so beautiful." ..."Except in our sequel. Please buy that one too!" 😂

@Tasuki The only reason that The Show is on Xbox in the first place is because the MLB forced Sony's hand. The only reason that The Show was on Gamepass was because the MLB forced Sony's hand. Corporate altruism doesn't exist.

@Tasuki This isn't tethered to reality. It's pretty obvious that Sony thinks they'll make more money via a la carte sales instead of a lump sum from Microsoft. It has nothing to do with users on PlayStation. Not that complicated.

Absolute tragedy. 55 is far too young.

R.I.P.

I'm no fan of GameStop, but this is actually pretty great 😂

"We're thoughtful about how we approach that"

Interesting take, considering the state of the recent Switch 2 Skyrim release.

@Fiendish-Beaver That's certainly true, but it's not like Microsoft is a victim in this situation. They put themselves here through their own decision-making.

That said, I imagine every developer wants their games released everywhere. I'm sure it's even true for Sony first-party teams.

I am absolutely loving Arc Raiders. Most addicted I've felt to a game in a quite a while. Playing solo is fantastic for getting resources and quests done and then playing in a group is great for PvP.