The Xbox showcase brought the E3 magic

E3 is dead now, but everybody turns up anyway, and plays by the same old rules: it’s June, it’s Pacific time, it’s a lot of new trailers, show up and show off.

The rule for Xbox specifically, for the last decade, is that it has to prove itself.

For most of that time, it’s been struggling: Playstation and Nintendo have stayed far ahead on platform sales, and despite amassing a gigantic studio portfolio, Xbox has struggled to build momentum.

They have made a spirited effort, they have received a polite response, and everybody goes back to the other platforms because that’s where their friends are.

This year, there was an extra edge, thanks to mass layoffs and studio shutdowns to optimise the vast portfolio that nobody forced them to build, fan outcry over the prospect of Xbox games appearing on other platforms, and recurrent whispers that maybe the Game Pass subscription model isn’t working out.

After years of cultivating a reputation as the industry’s most lovable exec (admittedly not a high bar to clear), Phil Spencer lost his halo, and was doubtless relieved to be part of a pre-recorded showcase rather than fronting a live show that would probably have had jeering picketers outside.

Despite that gloomy background, Xbox doubled down and pulled it off – a relentless run, at speed, through a dazzling array of games that would have been the talk of the show at E3 of old – an emphatic demonstration of the power both within Xbox’s studio lineup and the industry at large, and a long list of games to look forward to.

“Despite that gloomy background, Xbox doubled down and pulled it off – a relentless run, at speed, through a dazzling array of games that would have been the talk of the show at E3 of old.”

Running all the way through was an absolute commitment to Game Pass – just about everything will show up on it, most of it at launch – and more than half were from Xbox’s own studios.

It started, as is law, with Call of Duty – Xbox’s preferred shooter since Halo lost its grip, but one that’s had its own wobbles in recent years, but is now back in the fan-favourite Black Ops garb.

The trailer was unrelenting nonsense, obviously, but promised the usual globe-trotting plus riding a Stars and Stripes-painted motorcycle through a window, a police cordon and possibly a Black Hawk helicopter so it’s definitely going to maintain the series’ commitment to documentary realism.

CoD formalities completed – right down to Xbox accidentally breaking its own embargo by publishing details on its website before the show – things could move on to answering the lingering question of what those studios it’s bought are actually doing.

Bethesda put forward the strongest showing. The first of many surprises was a bombastic Norse setting that revealed itself to be Doom: The Dark Ages, which gives Doom Guy a shield, more open space and the freedom to be extremely metal.

In the last two Doom games Id has already demonstrated its ability to take the character – if that’s not too strong a word – beyond the simple shooting of his origins, and this looks to be equally successful.

Similarly, MachineGames’ prior work bringing Wolfenstein’s BJ Blascowitz into the 21st century meant their take on the similarly uncomplicated Indiana Jones was always going to work, but the extended trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle showed a commendable commitment to the films’ staging, too.

The pairing of CGI Harrison Ford with the voice of Troy Baker works surprisingly well, and benefits from comparison to the animation in Dial of Destiny.

“The pairing of CGI Harrison Ford with the voice of Troy Baker works surprisingly well, and benefits from comparison to the animation in Dial of Destiny.”

Starfield got the “and you can play it today” treatment with a series of new features and community mod content, but more interesting was the reveal of the Shattered Space expansion, which had a Dead Space-esque intro to what looks like a horror story.

Elder Scrolls and Fallout had to stick with multiplayer news on Online and 76 respectively, but the news that you can play as a ghoul in the latter may find a wider audience now that Walton Goggins has shown how it’s done.

From the other studios we got a further look at Obsidian’s Avowed, revealed last year, an enjoyably straight-faced pitch for the benefits of salaried employment in Flight Simulator, and what looked like actual gameplay from Compulsion’s Southern-fried fantasy South of Midnight.

By contrast, an extended rumination on the state of State of Decay 3 was claimed to show the game’s evolution but felt more like a lavishly-produced reminder that the game was in development, rather than credible glimpses of what it would be like to play.

The same could be said of the Fable trailer, which served chiefly to demonstrate that Matt King joins Richard Ayoade in the game’s cast, continuing a run of British comedy stars of a certain vintage that will presumably peak with Peter Capaldi playing Albion’s version of Malcolm Tucker when the game arrives next year.

More exciting was Perfect Dark, finally revealed after years of troubled rumours: it was still a glossy showreel but one that gave a sense of the stylish shooter that lay within, which contained a surprising dose of Mirror’s Edge.

It was probably the highlight of the show, although the true heads will probably point to Sarah Bond’s “just one more thing” reveal of Gears of War: E-Day – a fresh-faced Marcus Fenix, so underdeveloped he was still taller than he was wide, in an all-cinematic glimpse at the day that kicked off the entire Gears of War storyline.

This was backed by a strong collection of third-party titles. The extended Dragon Age: The Veilguard trailer was good enough to make you forget how terrible a name Dragon Age: The Veilguard is, and introduced a new cast of characters sure to set AO3 aflame.

We got a glimpse of gameplay in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and confirmation that both are arriving this year. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn and Stalker 2 are 2024 releases, too, adding a bit of colour to the months ahead.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure and the intriguing Mixtape both served up smaller-scale stories and, seemingly, no requirements to kill anything, which stood out in a show brimming with various flavours of brutal melee takedown.

“Life is Strange: Double Exposure and the intriguing Mixtape both served up smaller-scale stories and, seemingly, no requirements to kill anything, which stood out in a show brimming with various flavours of brutal melee takedown.”

Mecha Break and Fragpunk were united by both having arresting aesthetics, terrible dad-core names and a multiplayer focus that will make success hard to reach. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was an intriguing turn-based RPG with a highly theatrical storyline, and Metal Gear Solid Delta is… just a remake, but that’s the best we can hope for from Snake these days.

There were some misses. Indie games continue to slide out of view: Winter Burrow gave a glimpse of cosy-core home building but lurched back into the thematic alignment with the rest of the show when the lovable mouse aunt was snatched away by an owl at the end of the trailer, adding to a list of winged monstrosities featured in Dragon Age, Doom, Diablo 4 and Wuchan Falling Feathers.

Age of Mythology looked good but served to highlight that the rest of the show was mostly about Xbox games you can play on PC, rather than titles built with the platform in mind.

These are minor gripes, though, and speak to a showcase that harked back to the classics of the E3 form: a dazzling run of the new and exciting, a mix of known brands and new ideas, and at least a handful of them to be in player’s hands within months.

It’s unlikely to change Xbox’s status in the hardware ranking – it’s as clear as it’s ever been that Xbox is still doggedly committed to Game Pass – and it won’t silence the criticism of recent cuts, but it showed a bright future for the platform.

There wasn’t a green-lit auditorium or a stagily-revealed supercar – there wasn’t even a Forza game – but the lineup was as strong as E3s of old.