Marcus Fenix Collection would be sweet. Remaster each campaign (including Judgment) and Gears 3 multiplayer with maps from original trilogy. And add Overrun from Judgment + Horde 2.0.

And because it's TC, take a dump on the whole thing by adding ridicilous amount of microtransactions.

Not too keen on remasters period.

February 6

Final Fantasy XV
Featuring action heavy combat, innovative gameplay, and immersive graphics that push the limits of modern hardware, Final Fantasy XV is an awe-inspiring tale that transports audiences into its vivid imagining of a fantasy world based in reality. Experience this acclaimed installment in the legendary series that has defined storytelling and adventure in video games for decades.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood
With the most open-ended Wolfenstein experience to date, explore a new base of operations located deep in the heart of the Paris catacombs and plan how and when to attack and dismantle the Nazi regime. Set 19 years after the events of Wolfenstein II, BJ Blazkowicz’s twin daughters, Jess and Soph Blazkowicz — after years of training from their battle-hardened father — are forced into action. Team up with a friend to level up, explore, and complete missions to unlock abilities that compliment your playstyle.

February 13

Death Squared (ID@Xbox)
Prove your teamwork skills in Death Squared as you solve puzzles together or die trying. Guide robots to color-coded goals while avoiding deadly traps and hazards. Players will need close observation and communication to keep each other alive and discover a solution together in this co-op puzzle game for one, two, or four players – best enjoyed with your friends and family with – featuring both a single-player, co-op campaign, and party mode.

In Case You Missed It  

Celebrate Valentine’s Day weekend by joining us for the Bleeding Edge closed beta! From February 14 through 16, grab your 4v4 team and tear it up in an electrifying online brawler where every fighter comes mechanically enhanced for mayhem!

Xbox Game Pass Quests

Quest hunters! We just rolled out a new update for Xbox Game Pass Quests that will give you more quests to complete with daily, weekly, and monthly quests. Get all the details here in our dedicated Xbox Wire post here!

Membership Benefits and Game Updates

Ark: Valentine’s Day Event February 11 – 19 (Console and PC)
Love is in the air with their annual Valentine’s Day event. Mate tame dinosaurs and score chocolate rewards. Ahh, romance.

Reminder that Xbox Game Pass members have a member discount for up to 10% off of add-ons and paid DLC for games in our library. We have a whole collection of Xbox Game Pass deals, including these below coming soon!

Coming February 11

Dead Cells DLC – The Bad Seed (Console and PC)
Harvest a few souls with your new scythe! Play through The Arboretum, The Swamp, and The Heart of the Swamp. 

Metro Exodus DLC – Sam’s Story (Console and PC)
In this sandbox-survival expansion, forge Sam’s path on his journey through Vladivostok on his mission to find his way home to the USA, where he hopes to find his family – alive.

Cool to see YoungBlood get added def going to play it.

Remasters or Remakes? RE2 was not a remaster, if we get something like what they did with Gears Ultimate then that would be cool.

Banjo 1 & 2 remake is long overdue and I doubt that they bother with Fable 2 & 3 though.

Gears 2 Ultimate.

Or even better a collection with all Gears games.

Furthermore I want a Series X port of MCC with Halo 3 "Anniversary".

Somebody better fucking be making some interesting new IP, cus I'm pretty tired of hearing "MS may or may not be remaking, rebooting, remastering XYZ." I don't feel like having a massive rant right now, but suffice it say, I don't agree with this strategy at all.

If MS had the quality of IP in their back pocket that Sony or Nintendo do, I would agree with you. Alas, they do not. I don't blame MS for making efforts revive Fable, and AoE. Those names actually have a marketable brand value. Banjo, while I'm not personally a fan, would be perhaps be another IP that falls into that category. The rest though...? The cold hard truth, is that the vast majority of Microsoft's dormant IP isn't really worth dragging up from the bottom of the ocean. 

If we're judging the likes of Sunset Overdrive, Ryse, QB, etc. as failures...what does that make Conker? Bad Fur Day sold what...800k? Not exactly a runaway hit. Perfect Dark? The original did pretty well, sure, but Zero - a well reviewed launch title for a new console, which should really be a sales booster - again, less than 800k according to VGC. The original Banjo, like PD, sold very well. The critically well received sequel? Less than half that. Barely more than Ryse.  And the games I'm talking about here are among the more successful IP in Microsoft's catalog. Most of them aren't even worth a whisper.

Now, if you wanna argue that something - like Perfect Dark for instance - can be completely retooled. Turned into a dark, emotionally driven, cinematic third person action game, that gets marketed as if it were in fact an entirely new IP...ok. Sure. I submit in return, that the Perfect Dark name you attach to that project has very little meaning, and makes almost no difference in the amount of sales and/or GamePass subscription that ultimately result from the release of said game. You could just as well call it anything else. Joanna could just as well look and sound like anyone else. The brand of Perfect Dark will not be a real contributor to the success or failure of the game. And granting that....you might as well have been working on a new IP from the beginning. Inspired by games from the past, in your own catalog or others, if you want, of course...but tied to the whole brand value of something that hasn't been even remotely successful, popular, or even relevant in 2 decades or so? No. Why? To what benefit? Appeasing some small groups of people online? Pass.

This narrative is completely incorrect because you are comparing the sales of early-2000s games with mid-2010s games. The gaming market landscape has changed dramatically. So, saying that Conker was a commercial failure because it sold 800k, less than QB 1m+ which is considered as a failure is completely wrong. And I'm not even taking both games budget into account.

Fair enough, these games weren't failures. What I really meant to say is that they also weren't, and aren't, big enough create a sustainable brand. I did construct that paragraph in a way that made them out to be failures though, so that's my bad.

In regards to the ballooning budget of games, I actually think that this makes the comparison more important. If you bring these games back today, gamers are expecting you to throw serious AAA resources behind it to do it justice. Can a game liker Conker, which I personally LOVED btw, really justify that kind of weight on it's shoulders? I don't believe so. If you don't put that weight on it though, people are going to say that you're being cheap, you didn't try hard enough, didn't believe in the project, etc, etc. 

All you have to do is look at the recent discussion around Hellblade, where even in just this very small slice of fans, we got people who expect this franchise to now make the full on AAA leap under MS, and be a GoW competitor. That's for an IP that's actually recent, and was successful as a small scale production. If MS announces they're bringing back something much older, with a cult following, you create MUCH more pressure based on the name, and legacy you're tying that project to. After all, you gotta have a reason to bring it back. You gotta do it right. You gotta do it big.