June 11th, 2023 was a great day for Xbox fans. I don't have exact numbers of how many Xbox fans enjoyed the show and considered it a 9/10 or 10/10 show, but overall it seems like most of us really liked the show. Do I think it was perfect? No, but I honestly think it was the best show Xbox had done since the one they did in July 2020. Ryan McCaffrey, who is an Executive Editor at IGN and a big fan of Xbox, he ran a poll on Twitter for the fans to grade the Xbox Games Showcase. 7000 people voted in that poll and 86 percent of them said that the show was either an A or B. That's some high praise from the fans and Xbox indeed deserved it.
It was a special treat to see Fable, Avowed, Forza Motorsport (with release date), Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and finally some games by Compulsion Games and inXile Entertainment with South of Midnight and Clockwork Revolution respectively. Not everyone is going to play all seven of these games but I really wanna play all of them. This upcoming September, Xbox gamers will get to play Starfield, Lies of P, and Cyberpunk 2077's newest DLC, Phantom Liberty. I don't know how I'm going to manage my time to play all three of them in the same month. The best part is that I will only have to pay for Phantom Liberty. I can play Starfield and Lies of P with my GamePass subscription.
Note: I know Mortal Kombat 1 is also going to release in September, but I was only focusing on the games that I really liked during yesterday's Xbox Games Showcase.
While the show was really, really good, there were a few things I didn't like about the show. One major franchise was missing from the showcase. Fable reveal did have gameplay, but the developer didn't show enough of it. Hellblade II got a release window for next year, but again, they didn't show any combat/gameplay of it. Not sure who wanted to see updates regarding Fallout 76, Overwatch 2, and Elder Scrolls Online at the showcase. The thing that upset me the most was Xbox didn't show any major surprise addition to GamePass for the month of June.
Lately, GamePass additions have been somewhat mediocre. I know a lot of GamePass users enjoyed Planet of Lana which was added to GamePass about three weeks ago, but I haven't found any interesting game on GamePass since Ghostwire: Tokyo and that was exactly two months ago. Right now, I'm not seeing any heavy-hitter coming to GamePass until September 6th. If there is one, please let me know, but the recent additions have been very forgettable. Some of us thought that late May and early June additions were so and so because Xbox was waiting for June 11th to wow us with major surprises. That didn't happen. I'm not saying that Xbox needs to add Street Fighter 6 or Diablo 4 to the GamePass library, but they could add some big AAA games from the last few years. They could add Resident Evil: Village, Tales of Arise, Evil West, Sonic Frontiers, Gotham Knights, or Cyberpunk 2077.
Back in 2019, 2020, and 2021, Xbox routinely added some major big third-party recent releases like Red Dead Redemption 2, Devil May Cry 5, Metro Exodus, Outriders (day one actually), Resident Evil 7, Control, and more. Not sure what has happened with the recent additions, but as of right now, the next big first/third-party game that will be added to GamePass is going to be Starfield on September 6th. Indie games and AA double games are fun, but a lot of us, including myself, signed up for GamePass so we can have access to recently released AAA games. I know Redfall is a AAA game and it launched last month, but it ended up being a disaster. Hopefully, Xbox adds some big games to their GamePass library in July because the last three months have been mediocre at best.
Now, I wanna get back to Hellblade II: Senua's Saga. The first time we saw a CGI trailer, a great one, was back in December 2019 during the Game Awards show. Two years later, again during Game Awards, we got a six-minute clip where they showed Senua walking, running, and throwing a spear at a big giant. It looked really cool, but we didn't see any combat. Yesterday, eighteen months since Game Awards 2021, we got to see another cinematic from Hellblade II. When are we going to see the combat of this game? The first game was really good and it had decent combat, but there was a lot of walking in it. The only major complaint in the first game was that we spent most of our time just walking from one point to another. Combat and puzzles were good, but they needed to be more. Is Hellblade II going to be another walking simulator? Xbox and Ninja Theory aren't showing any combat or action sequences. I'm a bit worried but still looking forward to it.
So why was this show not a 10/10? Why is it mostly considered an 8/10 or 9/10 show? Well, there was no announcement of Gears 6 or Gears: Marcus Fenix Collection. We weren't expecting a release date or even a gameplay presentation for Gears 6, but it has been almost four years now since Gears 5 came out in 2019. Gears 5 was available to gamers just three years after Gears of War 4 released. We are halfway through 2023 and still don't have a teaser for Gears 6. Hopefully, we will get it six months from now at the Game Awards 2023.
Also, it would have been nice to see anything related to Halo Infinite's single-player content. I really enjoyed the main campaign and I can't wait to explore more of Master Chief's story along with the new Cortana. Multiplayer is fun and all, but some of us prefer single-player content. It has been eighteen months now since Halo Infinite's main campaign came out. We should be getting a DLC for it by next June at least. Fingers crossed!
At the end of the day, I'm happy with all the good stuff we got to see yesterday. I would give this Xbox Games Showcase a final score of 8.5/10. It was a great show and yesterday was a great day for all of the Xbox community. It is just crazy how many great games are on the horizon for the Xbox ecosystem if you count both first and third-party games. Starfield is going to be epic and we cannot wait to explore all of the magical worlds it has to offer. Safe to say that Xbox is going nowhere and the future is bright.
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