Inside Xbox - Series X Gameplay First Look

[Moonface]

Microsoft has delivered the first look at what can be expected from the next generation of video games that will run on Xbox Series X, and here's a run-down of everything that was shown today:

Bright Memory Infinite | Trailer
Combine a wide variety of skills and abilities to unleash dazzling combo attacks in an all-new lightning-fast fusion of the FPS and action genres, created by FYQD-Studio.

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The Ascent | Trailer
The mega corporation that owns you and everyone, The Ascent Group, has just collapsed. Can you survive without it in this solo and co-op action RPG set in a cyberpunk world?

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DiRT 5 | Trailer
Travel the globe, tame the most incredible off-road machines with your friends, and be part of a vibe that delivers big on epic action, pure expression, and unbridled style as DiRT 5 looks to be bolder and braver than ever before.

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Scorn | Trailer
Looking like a love letter to H.R. Giger's Alien, Scorn is an atmospheric first-person horror adventure currently in development by Ebb Software.

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Chorus | Trailer
Become Nara and Forsaken, her sentient starfighter, on a compelling, personal journey of redemption. Unlock devastating weapons and mind-bending abilities in a true evolution of the space-combat shooter. Explore breathtaking interstellar vistas, ancient temples and venture beyond our waking reality. Outgun, outwit, and outmaneuver your enemies in an epic quest to free the galaxy from oppression. Chorus (not Chorvs as the logo makes you think) is due for release in 2021.

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 | Trailer
Enter the World of Darkness and rise through vampire society. Experience Seattle - a city full of alluring, dangerous, characters and factions. You are dead now but stronger, quicker, more alluring and with potential for so much more. Choose to be brutal and unflinching or cultured and seductive. Use charm, cunning, terror and sheer will to rise through vampire society. What monster will you be?

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Call of the Sea | Trailer
Explore a lush island paradise and puzzle out the secrets of a lost civilization in the hunt for your husband’s missing expedition in this otherworldly adventure game set in the 1930s South Pacific.

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The Medium | Trailer
Become a medium living in two worlds: the real and the spirit one. Haunted by a vision of a child’s murder, you travel to an abandoned hotel resort, which years ago became the stage of an unthinkable tragedy. There you begin your search for difficult answers in this next-gen psychological horror game, featuring a 'dual' soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka and Arkadiusz Reikowski. The Medium will release Holiday 2020.

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Scarlet Nexus | Trailer
In a far distant future, humanity’s last hope falls into the hands of an elite group of psionic soldiers, who battle an invincible threat known as Others. Unravel the mysteries of a Brain Punk future caught between technology and psychic abilities in Namco Bandai's Scarlet Nexus.

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Second Extinction | Trailer
Work together as a team in this 3 player co-op FPS to take down large groups of mutated dinosaurs in your fight to reclaim Earth!

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Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Trailer
Become Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking yakuza grunt left on the brink of death by the man he trusted most. Take up your legendary bat and get ready to crack some underworld skulls in dynamic RPG combat set against the backdrop of modern-day Japan. Yakuza: Like a Dragon launches Day 1 on Xbox Series X!

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla | Trailer
After being officially revealed last week, Ubisoft has shown the first gameplay footage for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. However, the footage is representative of what the team expects to achieve on Xbox Series X, and therefore may be subject to change.

[Moonface]

Pretty decent showcase, although claiming everything to be gameplay and then having games like Scorn be nothing but a trailer (in-engine or not, a cutscene isn't gameplay) made it hard for me believe a lot of what I saw will be what we get. Especially when Ubisoft closed out the show with "Representative of expected Xbox Series X gameplay" which is cool to cover their backs after things like Watch Dogs back at the last next-gen reveal, but it fills me with skepticism as to how accurate that representation really is.

DiRT 5 seemed to be one of the few I trusted to be what it shows, especially since it isn't common for car games to bite off more than they can chew.

Chorus takes the prize for shittest logo. It does not look like a U and I don't get why it was shaped like a V when no other character in the logo is angular too.

The Medium could be really good since Silent Hill people are attached to it. One of the few new games shown that I actually took interest in.

Scorn intrigued me with the Alien looking architecture, but I have no idea what the game is except the genre. I want to see more, but dumping that into a gameplay showcase with no gameplay didn't sit well for me.

Bright Memory looked interesting as a concept, but I want to see better gameplay. It felt to me that the enemies were entirely blind to the player the majority of the time and made almost every encounter look boring as a result.

If nothing else, everything at least looked good visually, but given the trends for next-gen games never looking as good as they think they'll look I'm going to remain doubtful of how much of this stuff won't see a downgrade, and I want to see how everything else is enhanced by the new hardware too like load times and such. Plus the visuals mean nothing if the games don't feel good to play, and a few like Bright Memory didn't make a convincing argument on that front for me.

[Dragon Lord]

I only watched the trailer for Scarlet Nexus, since it's the only game I would be remotely interested in. It'd be nice if they said how many of these are Xbox exclusive, because even though Scarlet Nexus looks interesting and is by a developer I like, there's no way I'm going to buy an Xbox for it when Bandai Namco are known for releasing their games on all, or at least most, platforms.

The main thing I want to know is if Microsoft finally learned that exclusives are important, or if they're going to continue being like, "Hey guys! Look at this really neat game! Be sure you enjoy it on your PS4/PC!" Okay Microsoft, congratulations on being the first to show a game, but too bad you actually won't have anyone playing them on your system.

I already know that Yakuza: Like A Dragon will be on other systems, so that's already one that's pretty much null for Microsoft. Like I said, Bandai Namco normally don't do console exclusives, so I'd be surprised to see Scarlet Nexus actually be exclusive to the Xbox Series X (and it'd also likely be suicide for the game too because anime-style games don't sell well on Xbox consoles).

Looking at my YouTube feed, I also see that Dirt 5 will be on PS4/PS5 as well, so another one down.

[Moonface]

From what I could dig up it seems only Scorn and The Medium are exclusive, but they are also going to be on PC and it isn't clear if they are fully console exclusive to Xbox or if they are timed (something Xbox obviously isn't going to make public any time soon).

It seems this entire stream didn't go down very well though. Aaron Greenberg who is the marketing VP for Xbox put out this tweet addressing it:

I agree with most sentiments I've seen that nothing was truly gameplay. It was just in-engine sizzle stuff that would have been better marketed as showing what gameplay could look like for Series X. That way even if it isn't actually gameplay footage of someone just playing the game without blatantly scripted stuff and vertical slicing, you can fall back on the fact that it's just a representation. Which really is what this Inside Xbox was, but I went in expecting to see raw gameplay.

[Dragon Lord]

Well, it didn't take long for Bamco to confirm that Scarlet Nexus would also be going to PS4, PS5 and PC. Again, it was very obvious it would, since Bamco very rarely does exclusives now days.

Xbox's future isn't going to be too bright if they just remain this platform for showing off a game first and then having everyone ignore them afterwards because they know it'll come out on one of the more popular platforms as well. Like, they NEED exclusives this time around, because not only did Sony kick their asses hard this gen, but Nintendo also shoved their faces in the dirt when the Switch passed the Xbone's sales, when the Xbone was on the market for FOUR MORE YEARS.

They cannot afford a repeat of the Xbone.

[Karo]

Out of all of these I'm most interested in Vampire the Masquerade 2. The trailer I kinda feel was kinda weird, but I'll admit I never really dug too deeply into the first game I just thoguht the premise was really cool and I think the tabletop RPG also has some pretty cool ideas.

[Moonface]

Xbox's future isn't going to be too bright if they just remain this platform for showing off a game first and then having everyone ignore them afterwards because they know it'll come out on one of the more popular platforms as well. Like, they NEED exclusives this time around, because not only did Sony kick their asses hard this gen, but Nintendo also shoved their faces in the dirt when the Switch passed the Xbone's sales, when the Xbone was on the market for FOUR MORE YEARS.

I'm hoping their show in July that focuses on first party offerings will fix this. Obviously all of those will be on PC too, but that isn't what will hurt them in comparison to those first party titles not being collectively good or interesting enough to hook people into the Xbox ecosystem. For all their first party offerings with XBO, I can't think of anything apart from Forza that was an acclaimed first party title. Not to say everything else was bad, but I feel like they had more big hitters in the 360 era than they do now. Even without PC being another platform for those games, if the exclusive stuff isn't on par to what other platforms bring to the table then it makes it more likely for customers to look at the competition.

[ShiraNoMai]

The only thing Xbox is having an advantage over any of the platforms right now is their Game Pass. That thing is one of the best deals you could have in gaming right now and will be the sole reason I would consider an Xbox for in the future.

That conference was poorly marketed though. Reminded me of what Ubisoft would advertise in Watch Dogs era E3 presentations

[popopdc]

@ShiraNoMai I think they still have an advantage in the area of backwards compatibility as well. I’d jump ship from Sony for that reason if I weren’t hooked on TLOU.