Summary

• Summer Game Fest was a little underwhelming.
• Xbox Games Showcase stole the show with hits like Black Ops 6 and a medieval Doom prequel.
• Microsoft has a chance to shine, filling gaps left by Sony delays and offering exciting games.

I watched nearly all of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest reveals and every SGF-adjacent stream in one fell swoop. It was, as promised, a light year, where the ‘World Premieres’ were largely underwhelming and we didn’t see anything groundbreaking. There was no Silksong, no 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Bloodborne remaster, no The Witcher 4 (as i✅f anyone anticipated that).

Day of the Devs showcased a bunch of fun-looking indie games, but none piqued my interest like The Plucky Squire or Nirvana Noir have in past streams. The PC Gaming Show gave us a glimpse at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Citizen Sleeper 2 and I love the look of fantastical witch-raci🏅ng ga💦me Crescent County.

My expectations weren’t par🃏ticularly high, but I was still left underwhelmed. Until I watched the Xbox Games Showcase, that is.

Xbox opened up with a trailer for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and didn’t let up for a second. Whether it was showcasing narrative trailers for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age: The Veilguard (which, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:despite the terrible name change, I am unreasonab🌸ly excited for), or spilling the beans on smaller games like South of Midnight, the hour-long presentation offered hit after hit.

M🔯icrosoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer kicked things off with Black Ops 6. It was a strong start, despite the fact that I haven’t ♊finished a Call of Duty campaign since I was a teenager. Many are already heralding this as a return to form for the franchise, but I remain to be convinced. The good news is that it’s coming to Game Pass on day one, so I can try it out to see whether I like it or not without committing to a hefty price tag.

From Black Ops, we headed straight to the Doomslayer, who ripped and tore his way through… a medieval setting? A medieval Doom prequel is not what I had on my bingo card (at least, not before the leaks), but it shreds. Obviously. Like a descent into Richard I’s vision of hell, complete with bloated demons and messed-up monstrosities, this has shot straight to the top of my most-anti🍸cipated games list.

These big hitters were suppleꦏmented by closer looks at Dragon Age: The Veilguard with its… interesting… aesthetic and Fable, which gets more British with every new reveal. But꧑ there were small games, too. South of Midnight looks like a unique take on the fantasy genre, complete with an American south setting and a crocodile the size of an island. I don’t know whether the Perfect Dark reboot/remake can be considered small, but it’s a series I don’t know much about and am suddenly keen to learn more.

There were coun🌟tless other games that caught my attention, from Mixtape, to Life is Strange, to Atomfall. New looks at Avowed, Assassin’s Creed Shado🧜ws, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looked great, too. Gears of War was there, too.

All this is to say, this could be Xbox’s time to shine. With PlayStation out of the picture until next year, and the development of man🉐y games stifled and delayed by layoffs acro🌳ss the industry, Xbox has a chance to prove it can still compete.

I know it’s not a🃏 compe🌊tition, but a healthy rivalry is good for the industry.

I’m not framing this as an ‘Xbox is the good guy’ thing because they’re not the huge, crunching behemoth of Sony. Because, re♎ally, that’s not true. Xbox has been one of the worst offenders for laying off staff after mജass acquisitions. Its centralising of studios and acquisitions of entire companies has only done the industry harm. Producing a slate of great games doesn’t forgive those sins, but it does mean we have more cool stuff to play.

Microsoft has had plenty of opportunities to show its greatness. Sony’s ever-elongating development times for first-party games means there are more gaps in the gaming calendar to fill, but Xbox has fumbled the ball on m🎃ultiple occasions. Redfall was resoundingly trounced, Starfield underwhelmed, and Xbox was seen as finished.

But the Xbox Games Showcase is a light at the end of the tunnel. I feel excited about playing games again, my Game Pass subscription feels justified again, and my wishlistꩲ is full again. There are plenty of reasons to feel excited about video games releasing in the next year, and most of them come from Microsoft.