shikamaru317 3 hours ago
Angelus said:
They have to be a little careful, because I don't wanna go from a jam packed year of bangers to a sparse 2026 where they're like "Hey come on guys! Look at all the great games we released last year!" The whole point is supposed to be a steady cadence, and I gotta say, going from the MS standard of basically no games until the end of year for ages, to suddenly HERE'S ALL THE THINGS this year, has me a little worried they're shooting their whole load this year, and then it's back to dry lands. Maybe that worry is a bit unfounded, cus they do have so many studios now working on so many games, and certainly the incubation period if we wanna call it that has been long enough, but as an Xbox fan you always gotta live with a little bit of rational fear for what's around the corner lol |
I wouldn't worry about that too much for the next 3 years, there is plenty that should release each of these 3 years:
2025
- Avowed
- Oblivion Remaster
- Tony Hawk 3+4 remaster
- South of Midnight
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- A Double Fine game (they are now working on multiple smaller projects again which shouldn't take as long to develop as Psychonauts 2 did, they will have been working on the first smaller game for 4 years by late 2025)
- South of Midnight
- CoD Black Ops 2 direct sequel
- Fable
- The Outer Worlds 2
2026
- Forza Horizon 6 (5 years after Forza Horizon 5, longest dev cycle in the series)
- Clockwork Revolution (had gameplay footage ready Summer 2023, they can almost surely make a 2026 release)
- Perfect Dark (2026 will mark 5 years in development after the partial reboot when Murray left for Insomniac in 2021 and Crystal Dynamics was brought in to assist)
- Everwild (was said to be aiming for release in 2024 after the 2020 reboot when Gregg Mayles took over as creative director, and Phil Spencer recently said development was going well, should release in 2026 since 2025 appears too full to hold it)
- Gears E-Day (leakers have been suggesting it is further along in development than people think)
- Contraband (if this game is still happening, it will surely release in 2026, if not it is safe to say it was cancelled)
- Project Mara (if this game is still happening, 2026 seems likely, it sounded like a small game and they have had plenty of time to work on it both before and after Hellblade 2's release)
- State of Decay 3 (the leaks suggest that by 2022 good vertical slice demos of the game were starting to form after development turmoil before that point, so a 2026 release seems possible for sure)
- CoD Infinity Ward game
- Fallout 3 Remaster (the same roadmap from the ABK lawsuit documents that revealed Oblivion Remaster was in development, suggested Bethesda had a different partner studio remastering Fallout 3 as well, and the roadmap had it for 1 year after Oblivion Remaster, so that would put Fallout 3 remaster at 2026 now)
- Project Shaolin (The Wu Tang Clan inspired hip-hop action RPG from new studio Brass Lion, leaked by Jez in 2021, should be finished by 2026 as long as development has progressed smoothly)
2027
- Project Kestrel (This game will have been in development at Zenimax Online Studios for 9 years at this point, in active development for 7 years, should be plenty of dev time even for an MMO)
- OD (Kojima will have been working on this for 5 years at this point, so unless Kojima Productions has been waiting to start active development until after Death Stranding 2, 2027 seems possible. Hopefully Kojima Productions is big enough they have been working on both games at once.)
- Halo 1 Remake (Halo Studios [formerly 343] will have been working on this game for something like 4+ years by this point, and leaks suggest the game is further along in development than some might expect)
- Marvel's Blade (Began development in early2022, so a 2027 release with 5 years of development seems possible)
- Age of Empires (2027 marks 6 years since AoE 4 and 3 years since AoM Retold, should be plenty of time for World's Edge to develop something alongside one of their partner studios)
- CoD game (unknown who will be the lead studio on this one though, normally it would be Sledgehammer's spot in the rotation, but when Xbox bought Activision, 30% of Sledgehammer was laid off and their physical studio was shut down temporarily with Sledgehammer moving to work-from-home assisting on CoD's 2024-2026, unlikely that Sledgehammer will have been able to recover in time to be lead studio on CoD 2027)
- Another likely Double Fine game with them working on multiple smaller games now
2028
- This is the first year I would worry about being somewhat sparse, as most Xbox studios will have released a game too recently before this to have another ready by 2028 (studios that released games in 2024 or 2025 will be unlikely to make a 2028 release since game development takes so long these days, and Xbox didn't release much in 2022 and 2023, meaning they will have very few studios with games in development for about 5 years by 2028). Xbox will likely be relying on 2nd and 3rd party deals to carry them on this year, though this is the first year where TES 6 could possibly release, but 2029 seems more likely. Another possibility to see in 2028 is the first game from the now independent Toys for Bob who signed a publishing deal with Xbox for their first game Spring 2024, in development for 4 years as of 2028.
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