Highlights of the Xbox Games Showcase 2024

Another year, another Xbox Games Showcase. And perfect timing, too, as I just recently wrapped up a big project I’ve been working on for a while, as well as my work for the latest issue of Nintendo Force magazine. So hopefully, I’ll have more and more frequent updates to come.

Anyway…

It was a sombre mood going in this year, what with the closures of several studios without notice earlier this year, including the celebrated Japanese Xbox studio, Tango Gameworks, who had developed the award-winning Hi-Fi RUSH. Of course, that’s more of an industry-wide issue than solely Xbox, but the fact that it seems no matter how good a job you do, you’re evidently never safe… well, that just casts a bit of a dark cloud over things.

Even before the closures, it’s felt like Xbox has been in sort of a lull, but after? Morale has been low among Xbox fans (the ones I’ve been around, anyway). Will this showcase be enough to raise some spirits and boost their profile?

Well, it’s been a week, and I’ve had time to let the dust settle and think.

When compared to Sony’s State of Play last month, my overall verdict is that I don’t think Xbox showed any one thing that interests me more than Astro Bot. However, with the breadth and variety of titles shown, I think they continue to have more that interests me overall. (But then, they’d almost have to, by sheer quantity alone.)

Here’s what caught my eye, and why.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the whole shebang.

And if you want a quick list, here you go:

First up: No Call of Duty. I’ve never cared much more than the bare minimum about Call of Duty, and I even have some resentment towards it due to how Activision basically funnelled everything they had into it until there was nothing else left for me to be interested in. I don’t begrudge Xbox for having it or showing it or even doing a big thing on it, because I know that’s their biggest cash cow coming off the acquisition.

I just don’t care about the game.

So! With that out of the way, what caught my eye that’s left?

In the order shown (or at least listed on Xbox’s YouTube channel)…

Doom: The Dark Ages

Despite not being comfortable with first-person shooters until more recently, I’ve always had a certain… soft fondness for Doom. A respect, or appreciation, you might call it, despite never being heavy into the franchise. The recent games have looked good, and I’d love to give them a go at some point.

Now, you know I like my sci-fi, and hey, I enjoy a good fantasy romp as well. But my favorite stuff usually combines the two, and that looks like what they’re going for here, so this one has my attention in a way no Doom before it ever has.

South of Midnight

This one intrigues me. In particular, the almost claymation-like feel the cutscenes evoke. And the Cajun setting has my eye, too.

It’s not a whole lot for me to invest in, but enough to make me keep a further eye on it.

Perfect Dark

Well, it’s about time we heard something about this!

I have to admit, the look and atmosphere grabbed me right off the bat. Futuristic, but in a different way from what we saw in the Nintendo 64 original. I like it. I like both, but I like it!

The change at the end has me intrigued, too.

Fable

This has the same amusing irreverence we’ve seen in the previous Fable trailer, and it ends on a bit of an interesting hook.

I saw someone say that the visual style on this and Dragon Age: The Veilguard look like they were swapped, but as someone who hasn’t really gotten to dabble in the previous Fable games and has no particularly strong feelings about the art direction they had before, I’m fine with this.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

I enjoyed Microsoft Flight Simulator when I got to play it a few years ago, and I’m disappointed that it was just too big for me to keep for very long, or else I’d have gone back to it more often.

That said, this offers something a bit different that caught my eye: Jobs. Sure, flying a plane can be a job unto itself, but there are a variety of different jobs of which flying a plane is only a part, and this seems to have those in abundance. Air racing, commercial flight, air ambulance, flying a banner to advertise or promote something, VIP charter service, agricultural aviation, search and rescue, helicopter cargo transport, remote cargo ops, and aerial firefighting show some of the different ways flight is utilized in our world today, and should hopefully add some very welcome variety to what we experienced previously.

The freedom of Microsoft Flight Simulator was great, though I don’t know how much of that returns here. But it was lacking in a bit of direction, and for those who need a little something more, maybe this will provide.

…I think I’m going to need a bigger hard drive.

Mecha BREAK

You had me at “mecha”.

Seriously, this looks awesome. I just hope there’s a single-player component. If not, I might be in trouble.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

“Choo-choo! Choo-choo!”

Yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot of gameplay shown here, mostly cutscene stuff. But it was entertaining cutscene stuff, I’ll give it that.

Otherwise, I don’t think I have much more to say than I did back in January.

Gears of War: E-Day

I’ve only dabbled in previous Gears of War titles, and they’ve been fun enough. Apparently this one is a prequel? And one that has Alanah Pearce pretty hyped, so it sounds like the kind of thing fans might get into, which I’m happy for.

I might just give this one a shot. It’s not a game I needed, with the whole rest of the series there if I ever wanted to dive in, but maybe as a prequel, this would be a good starting point? I sure hope so.

Also, the “Mad World” throwback is pretty neat.

—–

Beyond that…

You’d think I’d be all about that Starfield DLC, given how I was into the game before launch, but as fate would have it? I… haven’t had time to even play what was already there yet.

Among the disappointments were nothing new with Banjo-Kazooie, as spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee is already getting its remake. And I know that they only just got there, but it would have been nice to hear some plans on what they’re going to do with all that Activision Blizzard IP. Like something with Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon.

Or putting some of that catalogue on Game Pass! That would be great!

And how about that backwards compatibility program? I thought I heard they were starting that up again. Squeezing the Activision Blizzard hits of the past Xbox generations would already be great, but can you imagine if they went further back? I want Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure to come back in some way. “Activision Replay”? They’ve already got NES, Super NES, Genesis, and more versions of old games running on their hardware with Rare Replay and Blizzard Arcade Collection, so there’s really no excuse now.

So, those are basically my thoughts on what we were shown, and what stood out to me.

Thanks for reading!