The long-awaited revelation of Starfield gameplay and a new Hideo Kojima game were the highlights of this year’s Xbox & Bethesda Showcase. During tonight’s live stream, Microsoft focused on demonstrating games that will be available to Xbox and PC users over the next 12 months. It started with the first game plans for Redfall – Arkane’s multi-player vampire shooter, which has now been confirmed to be the first person – and ended with an extensive look at the gameplay of Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG Starfield. Both titles were recently delayed for 2023, with no new dates given in today’s report. Microsoft has also announced a number of new partnerships with notable developers – the most important being the creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Hideo Kojima. According to its founder, Kojima Productions is now working with Xbox Game Studios on “a whole new game” that it “always wanted to make”, powered by Microsoft cloud technology. Kojima said the development “may take some time”, so it is unlikely we will hear more about it any time soon. Other partnerships announced included agreements with Atlus to transfer three Persona titles to the Xbox Game Pass, starting with Persona 5 Royal on October 21 and Riot Games to give Game Pass subscribers more access to its top games. Subscribers will have all the characters unlocked in League of Legends and Wild Rift spin-off, as well as the Valorant shooter, as well as content in Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends digital Legends of Runeterra card game. As expected, the Xbox Game Pass was the central thread of tonight’s revelations. About 20 titles were confirmed to be available to Day 1 subscribers, including third-party titles such as Hollow Knight: Silkson, Squanch Games’s new alien cartoony shooter, Oxide Games’s Ara: History Untold strategy game, Ark multiplayer sci-fi shooter 2, Kepler Interactive’s Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, a farming simulator based on Lightyear Frontier machines, a multiplayer action game Naraka: Bladepoint and a new Team Ninja Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. In fact, the only revelations that did not appear to be coming to Game Pass were Diablo 4 (for which Blizzard announced the latest character class, The Necromancer, and showed the first Xbox screenshot) and Overwatch 2, the free Blizzard game – Play Arena shooter starting with early access on October 4th. Microsoft presented more than 30 games during its exhibition. You can find out more about everything, from tonight’s showcase and the rest of the week, to the handy All The Announcement collection.
