Today during the XBox E3 2019 Briefing, Microsoft showed off 60 games, of which 14 were first party XBox titles, as well as unveiled some more news on Project Scarlet.
Let’s start with the biggest news of the briefing: Project Scarlet. As expected, the specs are similar to those that were announced for the PS5:
- Launches Holiday 2020 along side Halo Infinite(The Master Chief returns!)
- Custom designed AMD chipset which will make it 4x as powerful as the XBox One X
- Capable of 120 frames per sec
- Capable of 8k resolution
- Will be capable of ray tracing
- Will come with a Solid State Drive(SSD) that they will use partly for RAM utilization as well.
- It will be backwards compatible.
Phil Spencer did touch on Project xCloud briefly as well. It will be launching in October and you will be able to stream installed games on your XBox to support device you are on. Outside of that, there was not much information including cost, supported devices, etc.
Microsoft also announced that Gamer Pass will be coming to PC with the beta launching today. It was also announced that the Ultimate Gamer Pass will including the PC version as well. For $14.99/month, you will get the Gamer Pass for XBox and PC as well as XBox Live.
It was announced right before the reveal of Psychonauts 2, that Double Fine will become the 14 game studio that will be brought under the Microsoft Game Studios umbrella. Along with this addition, Microsoft did announce the Elite Controller Series 2. The controller is now available for preorder.
CD Projekt Red surprised everyone during their debut of Cyberpunk 2077 with the announcement that Keanu Reeves is a character in the game. Keanu was on hand to talk about the game during the briefing. Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduled to launch on 4/16/2020.
FromSoftware unveiled they joint project with Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin. The game is called Elden Rings. No details were given as to release date, however the trailer has it feeling like a cross between Game of Thrones and Dark Souls.
Here is a rundown of some of the games that were announced and their tentative release dates:
- The Outer Worlds (Obisidian) - October 25th, 2019
- Bleeding Edge (Ninja Theory) - No release date but the Alpha is starting in a few weeks
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps - February 11th, 2020
- Minecraft Dungeoes - Spring 2020 (Local and online 4 player co-op will be included)
- Blair Witch - August 30th, 2019
- Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus) - No release date
- Battletoads - No release date
- Microsoft Flight Simulator - No release date
- Age of Empires II Definitive Edition - No release date
- Wasteland 3 - No release date
- Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - 2020
- 12 Minutes (Annapura Interactive) - No release date
- Way to the Woods - 2020
- Gears of War 5 - September 10th, 2019
- Dying Light 2 - Spring 2020
- Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions expansion - later this week
- Gears of War POP! - No release date
- Phantasy Star Online 2 - Sping 2020
- Crossfire X - 2020
- tales of Arise (Bandai Namco) - 2020
- Borderlands 3 - September 13th, 2019
Overall it was a very good XBox briefing. They showed off a couple of first party titles coming to the system this year, as well as showed off what the future holds in 2020. My only complaint with the briefing is that there was so little Project xCloud news. With Google Stadia making so many announcements regarding their platform, this would have been the perfect time for Microsoft to answer back and show why Project xCloud could be better. I look forward to checking out Microsoft’s demos at the Microsoft Theater. It is starting out to be the makings of a really good E3 for them.
