I’m beginning to really feel like Charlie Brown from The Peanuts comics, and Microsoft is the Lucy who retains pulling the soccer away proper as I’m going to kick it. Yearly I write this function, and yearly I say that this seems like The 12 months™ the place all the things comes collectively for Xbox. Final yr, in actual fact, I particularly mentioned, “Waiting for 2024, that constructive momentum seems set to proceed and, optimistically, snowball.” Microsoft arguably didn’t reside as much as that for the primary 10.5 months of the yr, with solely the visually-full-but-gameplay-empty Hellblade 2 dropping in Might after a few years of ready. However to the big-spending writer’s credit score, it did finish the yr extraordinarily robust, dropping three unique bangers in a row: STALKER 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and my private vote for Recreation of the 12 months in 2024 and the sport that I believe is one of the best Xbox unique in years, Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle.
So, can Microsoft preserve that constructive end-of-2024 momentum going into 2025? Name me Charlie Brown when you should, however sure, I genuinely consider that 2025 could possibly be Xbox’s strongest and most bountiful yr since at the very least 2021, when it dropped Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, and Psychonauts 2. Let’s dig into why I’m optimistic…
A Fountain of Fantasy and Firearms
Xbox’s 2025 kicks off reasonably shortly and, from all the things we are able to inform, reasonably impressively with Obsidian’s first-person fantasy RPG Avowed, on account of be launched on February 18. This “Skyrim Lite” is ready within the studio’s established and well-loved Pillars of Eternity universe, it’s presupposed to be across the similar meaty-but-not-gargantuan 25-40 hours lengthy as Obsidian’s most up-to-date first-person RPG The Outer Worlds, and it’s impressed us increasingly more each single time we’ve performed it, together with fairly just lately.
Subsequent, whereas it doesn’t have a agency launch date but, id Software program’s sudden zag of a prequel, Doom: The Darkish Ages, is nearly a lock for 2025. In reality, I’d wager an In-N-Out Burger lunch that it drops within the first half of the yr for 2 causes: 1) Doom Everlasting shipped in March of 2020, that means that in only a few months, it would have been a full half-decade because the final Doom (which itself adopted 4 years after Doom [2016]). In different phrases, it’s time! Notably because the idTech engine is already firmly in place regardless of the soar to a brand new console era. And a couple of) I’d guess one other In-N-Out lunch that the long- and eagerly anticipated reboot of Fable being cooked up at Playground Video games – which, keep in mind, acquired tagged with a 2025 launch window in its Xbox Showcase 2024 trailer – goes to be Xbox’s large Fall/vacation sport on the finish of the yr. Meaning Doom in all probability ships earlier than the vacations. However every time it does – and keep in mind that it’s already confirmed to be a multiplatform launch on day one – it’s in all probability going to kick some severe ass for Xbox subsequent yr, judging by how good id Software program’s final two Doom video games have been.
Again to Fable: for my part, the revival of Fable has larger potential – each critically and commercially – than nearly the rest in Xbox’s portfolio in need of Name of Responsibility, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout. We’ve seen Playground’s tackle the British-charm-tinged action-adventure-RPG just a few instances now, and every time it’s been crystal clear that not solely does Playground “get” Fable (it’s British itself, which little question helps), however that the sport seems completely unbelievable as properly. Who knew that the ForzaTech engine might render a jaw-droppingly lovely fantasy forest simply in addition to a racetrack?
There’s one different large motive to be optimistic about Fable, and that’s Playground’s observe file. Merely put, this studio has not solely by no means missed, it’s by no means made something lower than a consensus 9 out of 10. Its final sport, the aforementioned Forza Horizon 5, was IGN’s 2021 Recreation of the 12 months. And it clearly is being given loads of time to cook dinner, as Fable was formally introduced in 2020 with work having already been carried out previous to that. Microsoft is aware of it might’t fumble Fable a second time, and I couldn’t be extra enthusiastic about what has been proven to date.
Subsequent, whereas it actually isn’t almost as large a reputation as Fable, we are able to’t neglect about South of Midnight, the third-person action-adventure from We Completely happy Few developer Compulsion Video games that’s leaning heavy into the folklore of the bayous of the Deep South. This one’s nothing just like the developer’s previous video games, which is admittedly riskier but additionally extra intriguing. Microsoft has tabbed this one for 2025, so contemplate South of Midnight as one thing of a wild card for subsequent yr.
One other smaller-name Xbox unique that I believe everybody might be speaking about if it comes collectively when it lastly ships in 2025 is Changed. It’s a pixel-art, cyberpunk-styled side-scrolling action-adventure sport that oozes type and, as I found after I performed it over the summer season, is far deeper than I anticipated. Changed has the potential to hitch the lengthy listing of legendary Xbox-exclusive indies that features video games like Limbo, Braid, and Inside.
Lastly, don’t neglect about Xbox’s precise largest franchise (since they now personal it), Name of Responsibility. It’ll keep on PlayStation, after all, however Xbox followers will get it day one on Recreation Cross. The 2025 Name of Responsibility is rumored to be a future-set Black Ops 2 sequel, so maybe Treyarch is dealing with the marketing campaign on this one after Raven Software program did a stellar job on this yr’s Black Ops 6 marketing campaign. And the opposite, a lot quieter juggernaut within the Xbox portfolio, Minecraft, will in all probability get some form of large in-game content material, what with the Minecraft film on the best way.
What About {Hardware}?
Barring a 180 from Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s earlier feedback, Microsoft gained’t be pushing a mid-gen improve to the Xbox Collection X (an Xbox Collection XX, if you’ll) in 2025, if ever. And although a handheld Xbox is in improvement, we’re unlikely to play it and even see it within the coming yr.
So ought to we anticipate any new {hardware} in 2025? Most likely not – at the very least when it comes to uncooked horsepower. The Xbox Collection S acquired a storage improve in 2024, as did the Collection X. And we’ll little question see a bevy of recent special-edition controllers and perhaps even that upgraded controller codenamed Sebile talked about within the FTC leaks from over a yr in the past, however 2025 doesn’t look like the yr for Xbox to drop any new silicon.
Something Else?
Uncommon’s Everwild seems to be in limbo and/or improvement hell, as we haven’t seen or heard from it in years. Would possibly it reemerge in 2025? Perhaps, however I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, Halo is being reset on the studio stage, which for my part means the subsequent Halo sport is prone to both be a reboot of the franchise altogether or a remake of Halo: Fight Advanced. Both manner, it’s going to be inbuilt Unreal Engine 5, and it’s in all probability going to take some time. InXile’s steampunk RPG Clockwork Revolution was introduced in 2023 with a launch window of “coming in due time.” The Outer Worlds 2 has been revealed, and we now know it’s coming in 2025, so meaning Obsidian plans to ship two first-person RPGs in the identical yr.
And talking of first-person RPGs, will that rumored Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster truly occur? How about Contraband, from Simply Trigger developer Avalanche Studios, which was within the 2021 Xbox Showcase and hasn’t been seen or heard from since? All we all know is that it’s “a co-op smugglers’ paradise set within the fictional world of Seventies Bayan.” Ought to it reemerge in 2025, it’s unlikely that it additionally ships subsequent yr as properly, given the same old PR/advertising cycles on big-budget video games.
The wild card for 2025 is Double Positive, the endlessly inventive and versatile studio headed by sport design legend Tim Schafer that’s coming off of 2021 Recreation Awards Recreation of the 12 months nominee Psychonauts 2. I’d anticipate Schafer and the studio to announce their new venture quickly, however as as to if it truly comes out within the subsequent 12 months is anyone’s guess.
Lastly, something from this yr’s Xbox Showcase that didn’t have a launch yr on the finish of the trailer can safely be assumed to be a 2026 (or later) launch. Meaning I’m not moderately anticipating to play Gears of Struggle: E-Day, Excellent Darkish, or State of Decay 3 within the subsequent yr. And that’s OK! It lastly appears like Xbox is beginning to pump out not only a regular stream of first-party video games, however a constantly good stream of them. That is what Xbox has been constructing in direction of since they first began buying studios in 2018 to attempt to repair their first-party video games downside, and dammit I believe that is the yr they lastly do it. Please don’t pull that soccer away from me once more, Lucy-Microsoft.