Microsoft’s Xbox has been around since 2001, and over that time the gaming brand has given us huge hits like Halo, Gears of War, Forza, and more. Today, the Xbox brand covers consoles like the Xbox One, PC gaming, and has even expanded to other platforms. You can play Minecraft on everything from a computer to an iPhone to a Nintendo Switch. Along the way, Microsoft has pioneered modern services like Xbox Live and Game Pass, introducing new ways to play games. And with Project Scarlett on the horizon, the Xbox looks to have a bright future.
“We will be playable natively and optimized for gaming handhelds on day one,” according to a post from Roblox CEO David Baszucki.
The announcement made me wonder: will the game come to Switch? “We are always looking for new ways to expand Roblox to both our creators and users,” Roblox spokesperson Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt tells me. “We don’t have any details to share about the Switch at this time.”
You can see the cost on the game’s Steam page. Microsoft had already said it would be raising the price of new first-party Xbox games to the $79.99 price, and here we are.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer just casually revealed Gears of War: E-Day is coming in 2026, 25 years after the launch of the original Xbox. It’s arriving alongside a “the next Forza,” according to Spencer, and “the return of a classic that’s been with us since the beginning.” That classic sure sounds like the Halo CE remaster I wrote about last year.
The big final reveal for the Xbox portion of the event was the next Call of Duty, which will be Black Ops 7. According to Activision, the new game will be set in 2035 and follows a story “where David Mason leads the Black Ops team against a manipulative enemy who weaponizes fear above all else.”
Gears of War: Reloaded will put the original Gears series in more hands than ever before. We already knew the game was coming to PS5 for the first time, along with cross-play and cross progression. We also knew the release date, August 26th. I guess Xbox didn’t really want anything, just to remind us it’s still here and coming soon.
If you already bought a Windows gaming handheld, you might not need to upgrade your hardware to get the overhauled Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows OS that Microsoft and Asus just announced.
Xbox exec Roanne Sones:
The Xbox full-screen experience will first come to the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X, and our next focus will be updating the in-market ROG Ally and the ROG Ally X. Similar full-screen Xbox experiences will be rolling out to other Windows handhelds, starting next year.”
The game, At Fate’s End, is “an action-adventure game where you fight the ones you love,” according to the game’s reveal trailer. It looks like a game perfectly designed for me, so I’m already looking forward to its release sometime in 2026.
Bloober Team is having a great time. Silent Hill 2 released to rave reviews and the developer has another project in the works with Konami. The team also has an original project, Cronos: The New Dawn.
We got a new trailer for the game featuring a tone of gross, be-tentacled monsters and some timey wimey shenanigans. Still now firm release date, though, beyond fall 2025.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 launches on July 11th, and Activision debuted a new trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase that showed off TMNT’s Michelangelo as a playable character.
With Palworld already a hit on Xbox, it’s no surprise other similar games are on the way. Next up is Aniimo, described as a “creature-catching open-world ARPG.” There don’t appear to be any guns, but the graphics sure look slick. It launches next year on the Xbox, PC, and mobile.
Don’t Nod, the studio behind the hella good adventure series, is going in a very different direction with a sci-fi survival game called Aphelion. It’s launching in 2026.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle came out just last year and the folks at MachineGames have been busy. During the Xbox Games Showcase we got a glimpse at a new DLC campaign, The Order of Giants.
In the trailer, it looks like Indy will be investigating the origins of the Nephilim, the mysterious giant-like men sworn to protect the Great Circle. I hope the DLC means we’ll get the chance to see Tony Todd’s character for one last time.
The latest trailer for Ninja Gaiden 4 gives a great idea of the brutal action fans can expect. But the most surprising bit might be how disturbing some of these monster designs are. Even better, we got a release date: it’s dropping on October 21st.
One of the first reveals was for a sequel to the comedic shooter High on Life, which introduces a skater vibe to the experience. It’s launching “this winter” and doesn’t look like it will skimp on the jokes.
The countdown to a big games showcase is usually filled with sizzle reels of upcoming games, but Microsoft has gone in a different direction: some chill clips of people fishing in Fallout 76 as part of the game’s most recent update.
If you haven’t had enough of gaming events, Microsoft has one more. The Xbox Games Showcase kicks off at 1PM ET, and will be followed by a second event focused entirely on The Outer Worlds 2.
That’s exactly a year after its initial release in 2024 on PS5 and PC. I haven’t played the game myself, but my colleague Ash Parrish did last year.
The fine folks in the Canadian division of Xbox have created a special Xbox Series X milk pitcher. “But Ash,” you say, “I’m an American, what’s a milk pitcher?” Well Timmy, in Canada some milk comes in bags and requires a vessel to store it in and pour out of when you get it home.
Xbox Canada decided what better vessel than an Xbox. And because this is Canada, of course there’s a second announcement in French.
It’s dangerous to go alone, but do it anyway.
Xbox Free Play Days weekend runs from today through Sunday, June 1st, with access to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (MP and Zombies only), no Game Pass membership required. For those with access to at least Game Pass Core, you can also play RK: Survival Ascended, Football Manager 2024, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game. Meanwhile, The Division 2 is also available with no paid membership through June 3rd.
With several exclusives including Indiana Jones, Forza Horizon 5, Pentiment, and more launching on PS5 and Nintendo Switch, the Xbox cross-platform floodgates have opened in earnest and there’s another game coming. This time it’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 arriving on PS5 this summer. For the PS5 version of Ninja Theory’s immersive supernatural viking thriller, the developers are offering an enhanced edition of the game with new features that will also come to Xbox and PC as an update.
