XBOX

If you woke up today expecting to find an arsenal of XBOX exclusives to taunt your PlayStation friends with, you might want to hold off. They opened with a deep dive into nearly 9 minutes of the Halo Infinite campaign. You can catch the official trailer and a Step Inside. For HALO fans it’s a chance to play an expansive campaign as Master Chief. Visually it looked, like Halo. The gameplay looked, like Halo! I am not one to trash on an iconic franchise jumping into their next release, but I just can’t believe people want more of this exact same world. (Author’s note - I am also in my 30th year playing as the Patriots in Madden, so maybe i understand.)

The event provided a look at several high profile first party titles. The biggest surprise was left for the end. Apparently it’s been an open secret in the UK for a few years.

STATE OF DECAY 3

As someone who recently downloaded and played State of Decay 2, I was thrilled to see even a little of the future for this “Walking Dead” style open world game. It was just a cinematic so we don’t know if this is actually what the game will look like, but it still gets me excited for what the next-gen game will play like.

FORZA MOTORSPORTS

The visual fidelity of racing games may be peaking. It seems as though every part of the vehicle is now being rendered with photorealistic detail and real world physics. What we are seeing from Turn 10 Studios is what I expected to see from the next generation of games. The question becomes, where will they go from here?

EVERWILD

If you were looking for a new game to get excited about, it’s probably EVERWILD from RARE. Coming off the success of Sea Of Thieves, Rare showed off gorgeous game with a unique art style. The developer promises “Unique and unforgettable experiences await in a natural and magical world.” The trailer they showed seems to deliver on that promise in some striking ways.

TELL ME WHY

If you’re looking for a deep story it’s probably going to be found in Tell Me Why from DONTNOD. They created the episodic game Life Is Strange

An optimized version of Ori and the Will of the Wisps will be released for XBOX Series X

GROUNDED is coming from OBSIDIAN, the team that created The Outer Worlds (Getting an expansion in September)

OBSIDIAN also teased an Elder Scrolls like adventure called AVOWED

AS DUSK FALLS will also deliver a compelling interactive narrative following 2 families over multiple generations. It’s from indie studio Interior/Night. The studio is headed by Caroline Marchal, former lead game designer for Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain and BEYOND: Two Souls.

Here are the rest of the notable trailers.

PSYCHONAUTS 2

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

Tetris Effect: Connected

The Gunk

New Genesis: Phantasy Star Online 2