Image: Ubisoft
Microsoft’s Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase showed off a ton of announcements and trailers for upcoming games like Starfield, Avowed, Fable and more.
E3 being cancelled this year hasn’t stopped Microsoft from going full steam ahead on its own Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase today. The presentation showed off a ton of surprising announcements and trailers from upcoming games in the companies’ slate, including Starfield, Avowed and Fable.
Even third-party studios like ATLUS and Ubisoft joined the fun, with the former announcing a Persona 3 Remake while the latter revealed their upcoming Star Wars game. Activision Blizzard’s Microsoft merger might be on the brink of collapse, but the company showed up to market games like Overwatch 2 anyway. We saw a bunch of games at the showcase today, but here are the most exciting trailers and reveals from the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2023:
Fable
Playground Games showed up to finally show off their brand-new Fable game, set in a whimsical fantasy world where people are either bored or annoyed by the magical creatures and strange sorcery popping up around them. This trailer starts with The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade introducing us to a world that's done with heroes, until its revealed that he's an evil giant who wants to munch on our protagonist.
South of Midnight
South of Midnight was a very impressive showing from Compulsion Games, the creator of We Happy Few. Set in what appears to be a Gothic take on Southern Louisiana, the game's protagonist approaches a guitar-playing skeleton creature for help with gorgeous stop motion-like visuals.
Star Wars Outlaws
Ubisoft's long-anticipated open-world Star Wars game finally gets a first look and title. The trailer introduces us to our protagonist: a Han Solo-like outlaw going in on one last job with a morally ambiguous dude named Jalen and her animal companion Nix. We'll get more gameplay on this at the Ubisoft showcase tomorrow, but Outlaws is shaping up to be an authentic Star Wars adventure for sure.
33 Immortals
The studio behind Spiritfarer, an excellent game about dealing with death, is making a multiplayer game with 33 player co-op - which is an odd number to fall on here, but who am I to judge. Much like Spiritfarer, this game rocks a whimsical 2D aesthetic that takes after games like Journey.
Payday 3
Payday 3 finally gets some gameplay! This action-packed trailer showcases the franchise's leap to next-gen consoles, with quite a lot of shooting. If you're doing this much shooting in a game about committing heists, you might not be very good at committing heists.
Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 with the visuals and gameplay of Persona 5? Inject it directly into my veins. ATLUS is giving Persona 3 a beautiful-looking remake that brings this fantastic story kicking and screaming into the modern age. It'll be nice to play this game with the polished up gameplay ATLUS has applied to later Persona sequels.
Avowed
Obsidian Entertainment's open-world fantasy fame Avowed finally showed off gameplay today, and it unsurprisingly looks amazing. The game is clearly inspired by The Elder Scrolls, and sees your protagonist take on skeletons, big bears and monsters of all kinds while on a quest that might not be for the greater good. Also, there are giant spiders - because Obsidian just can't help itself. Avowed comes out in 2024.
Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga
The new trailer for Senua's next grim adventure begins with a whole lot of creepy ASMR. Senua's voices cast constant doubt on her actions as she crawls into a magical cave and hears a booming voice, and the ones in her head, promise that everything she has ever wanted is finally within her reach. This launches in 2024.
Yakuza Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Poor ol' Ichiban Kasuga has washed up like a beached whale in America. The new Like a Dragon game takes our beloved Dragon Quest-loving ex-Yakuza member far away from Kamurocho under mysterious circumstances. Ichiban is going to have to learn some English and pick up some clothes, and not necessarily in that order.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Capcom revealed a supernatural third-person action game in a brand-new IP here, and its art design looks phenomenal if nothing else. The game's masked sword-wielding protagonist seems to draw power from the titular goddess to beat back monsters of all shapes and sizes as they come crawling out of open portals.
Forza Motorsport
Playground Games revealed a release date for Forza Motorsport: October 10, 2023. While Forza Horizon has always been a more casual experience set in beautiful locales, Motorsports is all about burning rubber with fast and powerful cars. The trailer shows off stunning photorealistic visuals and the many customisation options available to finetune your garage of vehicles.
Overwatch 2: Invasion
We finally got a look at Overwatch 2's upcoming PvE missions, which take players to maps like Paraiso and New Queen Street as the newly-reformed Overwatch team takes on the Null Sector. We also got a glimpse at an upcoming new game mode called Flashpoint, and a ton of content Blizzard recently revealed in a roadmap for 2023. The trailer ends with a short tease for the first-person shooter's next hero: a mysterious woman wielding a very large gun.
Starfield
We got a new trailer for Starfield, Bethesda's new sci-fi open-world adventure that takes players into the stars as part of an exploratory group of wayfarers called the Constellation. Needless to say, your quest to unearth secrets across the stars will end in deeper conspiracies and larger threats threatening to upend the galaxy. Xbox also held a Starfield Direct, which we'll cover separately. Stay tuned!
Jusant
Dontnod, the developer behind coming-of-age narrative games Life is Strange and Tell Me Why is making a game about climbing things. A child, accompanied by an adorable little creature, climbs mountains and swings across ropes while on a mysterious journey.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Any showcase with Keanu Reeves is a good showcase. Reeves introduces the upcoming expansion to CD Projekt Red's futuristic open-world game which also stars Idris Elba, Phantom Liberty. The gameplay trailer sees V and Johnny Silverhand on a last-ditch mission to save their lives by completing a mission that takes them into hostile territory. Even more hostile than usual, that is.
Phantom Liberty launches on September 26, 2023.
Cities Skylines 2
Cities Skylines is finally getting a sequel, with a massively expanded scope compared to the original game. The cities we're able to build look larger and more detailed than ever before. Skylines 2 launches on October 24, 2023.
Metaphor ReFantazio
ATLUS is mashing up the aesthetics of its two biggest franchises - Shin Megami Tensei and Persona - in this new fantasy RPG that has players team up with a party of companions to take down a rising worldwide threat.
Clockwork Revolution
InXile Entertainment, the creators of the Wasteland games, are making a new game set in a steam punk-infused city that has the player go up against a fascist antagonist with time travel powers. That, and lots of robots.
