Xbox Games Showcase & Starfield Direct (Sunday June 11 2023)

Definitely nice to see they will be doing in-game footage and not solely cinematic trailers. Hopefully there will be some actual sustained gameplay though, instead of just lots of fast cuts.

Hope Starfield has a more interesting showing this year than last year. It didn't nothing to suggest to me it wasn't just going to be another bland Bethesda RPG.

In general, Xbox always has a leg up on the competition with these shows, because of Game Pass. Games only have to be of mild interest to get you excited when you know you will get to play them without having to stump up extra cash.

Right I gotta go gentlemanz. Tonight is a literal school night after all.

I still think this year is going to end with Starfield (Sep), Forza (Oct), and Hellblade (Nov), and we'll see a lot of detailed gameplay from the latter.

I also think both Avowed and Fable are due next year. The first of those will have a good gameplay showing but the latter might just be an in-engine cutscene.

Other than that not sure. Everwild? Probably Ara or whatever it's called, the Civ-like. Kojima's game? Indiana Jones?

I'd really like to see whatever id and Double Fine are working on.

Obvious 3 being Starfield and Forza with a release date.
Hellblade 2 plus release date.

Fable
Hi-Fi Rush DLC
High on Life DLC
Possibly Avowed
Small chance of Everwild
Contraband gameplay
Perfect Dark
Redfall might get a 20 second 60FPS release date.
State of Decay 3

Tempering my expectations (or trying to at least) as always.

Starfield & Forza are a given, but if they can give either Hellblade, Avowed or Fable a good showing on top, or even better, get something like Hellblade actually out for Christmas, then I think they'll have had a good show.

Feel like that's a little more than optimistic mind you. Unless it's an immediate direct sequel, AAA development times have basically become insane at this stage, given a lot of that stuff was announced less than 5 years ago I'd wager most of it still has a way to go.

Wouldn't mind that Gears collection that was rumoured last year but never materialised either.

Quake 1.5 please. A proper sequel to the original theme of the first game.

Wonder if they could do a new Quake 3. There is a dearth of arena shooters at the moment and could be interesting to see someone trying a modern take on it. Then again, not sure how much interest there is, as other attempts don't seem to have gone anywhere (did Unreal Tournament even ever really come out? I just remember some beta builds that ran like shit - it was also announced almost 10 years ago!).

I think we really, really, really need to temper our expectations about what they're going to show here. We don't want to get into Sony Showcase levels of disappointment. All I want is just some return on the studios they acquired.

Even just a swish next gen glow-up of UT3 would satisfy me. I loved that game.

That pipe dream, Starfield, Forza and Avowed are my main interests.

Hoping to see something from STALKER 2

I'm hoping for some more gameplay footage and a release date for STALKER 2.

I'd also like them to revisit their back compatibility programme with a focus on resolution bumping the Xbox One era games in the same way they did the straight multiplier on OG Xbox/360 > Xbox One X.

Some good Gamepass announcements always go down well too.

Ori 3 maybe?

Forza release during the showcase would be nice.

Don't think we needed this much MK1.

Do we think MK1 will have some kind of tag team mechanic (like choosing a secondary character) or is that just a single player thing?

Also, that Prince of Persia looked pretty nice.

Edit: ah, they are explaining it. They are cameos.