Highlights
- Xbox CMO Jerret West announced that the launch of Starfield will kickstart a series of first-party game releases.
- Xbox has been criticized for lagging behind the PS5 in terms of game releases, but the company is confident that the lineup of games for 2024 and 2025, along with Game Pass and third-party titles, will change the tide.
- Expect exciting releases in the coming years, including Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, Ara: History Untold, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, Towerborne, Fable, Perfect Dark, another Gears of War, State of Decay 3, and a mysterious project by Kojima Productions.
Xbox Chief Marketing Officer Jerret West has said that the long-awaited launch of Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG Starfield will mark the beginning of a train of first-party game releases for the company. Starfield has gone gold and will finally hit storefronts on September 6, and unfortunately, leaks have already begun to appear online, including 40 minutes of gameplay footage recorded during a Gamescom preview.
Part of the reason so many people are excited about the launch of Starfield, besides the fact that it looks generally impressive and ambitious, is the fact that Xbox has seemed to be lagging behind when it comes to first-party releases. In the so-called console wars, many people think that PS5 has given gamers more bang for their buck. Particularly in 2023, there haven’t been many Xbox first-party games, and the warm reception of Hi-Fi Rush in January was dampened by the subsequent negative reception of Arkane’s Redfall in May.
According to Xbox’s CMO Jerret West, all that’s set to change after the launch of Starfield. Speaking at Gamescom, the executive said that the upcoming RPG was like a “starting gun” that would set off a “multi-year relay race of first-party titles.” West expressed excitement at the lineup that Xbox has planned for 2024 and 2025, and throwing in Game Pass and third-party titles that are also in the works, “we are entering a period where this is the beginning of something that’s going to be really special.”
In another Gamescom interview, Phil Spencer said that 2022 was “too dry” and that Xbox is finally where it had hoped to be a couple years ago. At Gamescom 2023, the company has a 50,000-square-foot booth showing off some of the upcoming first-party titles for Xbox Series X/S and even Xbox One. The console version of Age of Empires 4 launched on August 22, and Forza Motorsport will follow in October. And 2024 will have several first-party titles, if all goes to plan, none of which have firm release dates yet.
Obsidian Entertainment is working on two games slated for a 2024 release: Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2. Though many gamers were expecting Avowed to be just another Skyrim, footage and details shared by the developer in recent months have shown that that’s not an entirely accurate comparison. For one thing, the game’s size will be more akin to that of The Outer Worlds, while The Outer Worlds 2, on the other hand, is expected to be even bigger than its prequel.
Ara: History Untold is a turn-based strategy game coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one. And while it’s expected to scratch the same itch as the Age of Empires and Civilization franchises, it will let players rewrite history and create an alternative version of the past. Also coming in 2024 is Ninja Theory’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, as well as Towerborne, an action-adventure game by the developers behind The Banner Saga that is being published by Xbox Game Studios. Beyond that are Fable, Perfect Dark, another Gears of War, State of Decay 3, the still-unnamed Kojima Productions project, and many more.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz