It's about to kick off in the centre of Kuttenberg, the sprawling medieval city at the heart of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Menhard the sword master has offered to teach protagonist Henry of Skalitz a few tricks with the blade, but the lesson has been interrupted by Kuttenberg's official fencing guild. They won't let Menhard teach so much as a pommel strike, despite him having a charter from King Wenceslas to do just that. Moreover, they're going to fine the old Fechtmeister for breaching their rules.

Things are getting heated, with the chance of a real swordfight breaking out growing by the second. But Henry has an idea. "Menhard wasn't teaching me anything," he blurts out. "We were duelling because I insulted his honour!"

Unconvinced, the guild master asks what the duel was about, at which point I'm given an array of choices for Henry to respond with. Reacting quickly, I decide to have Henry say that he slept with Menhard's daughter. I don't know whether Menhard has a daughter, but it seems like the sort of thing medieval people would get into a duel over, so I roll with it.

It works. The guild master buys my bald-faced lie and waives the fine, though Menhard is still prohibited from teaching longsword in the city. With a fight avoided, I turn to Menhard expecting him to be grateful. Instead, he's furious. It seems Menhard really does have a daughter, and the very idea of Henry sleeping with her has genuinely insulted his honour. Oops. With their relationship damaged, Henry must desperately placate the raging swordmaster before they can focus on more important matters, like plotting how to get back at Kuttenberg's fencing guild.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is shaping up to be an even bigger RPG than the original, a 100+ hour epic featuring massive battles, sweeping Bohemian landscapes, and a fully simulated medieval metropolis. But at Warhorse Studios' preview event hosted in the real-life city of Kutná Hora (the modern Czech name for Kuttenberg) it was this throwaway detail that stuck with me the most. Warhorse claims every choice the player makes in its RPG will feel like it matters, and this dramatic response to a decision I barely thought about was the first (but not the last) indicator that KCD2 could well deliver on this promise.

It'll be several hours before KCD 2 opens-up to you in this way, however. Warhorse provided access to two separate chunks of the game, the first of which took place right at the beginning. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 opens in medias res, with an explosive castle siege where you defend the ramparts with crossbow and longsword. Warhorse says KCD 2 will feature substantially larger battles than the previous game, and this initial sequence was an impressive taster of playing at a larger scale, from booting down siege ladders from the castle wall, to firing crossbow bolts into a crush of enemy soldiers as they come barrelling through the gate.

Following this exciting opening, KCD 2 rewinds to connect with the end of the first game, as we rejoin Henry and his friend and liege lord Sir Hans Capon on a mission to deliver a letter to neighbouring lord Otto von Bergow. This initial hour is strictly linear and heavy on cutscenes, but it keeps you engaged through the feelgood vibes of Henry and Hans' friendship. Like the first Kingdom Come, the sequel is written in a very humanistic style. Henry remains a deeply affable, fish-out-of-water protagonist, while his position as Sir Hans' squire leads to an interesting blend of camaraderie and tension between the two.

Together, the pair have big "lads on tour" energy, clearly revelling in the rare freedom their position and assignment affords them in medieval society. It isn't all fun and games, however. An encounter with a retinue of Bergow's knights emphasises the danger that lurks around every corner, as the two have to convince the armed horsemen that they aren't bandits. It's the first of many elaborate dialogue sequences, with numerous player choices and a lot of exposition. Indeed, while KCD's conversations are generally interesting, I did wonder if they might benefit from some sterner editing at times.

KCD2 is built to be played with no foreknowledge of the original. As such, the opening hours fold in several refresher tutorials, such as Henry and Hans having a friendly duel that reintroduces you to KCD's unique swordfighting system. This has been refined for the sequel, reducing the number of directions you can swing your sword from five to four, and making actions like parrying and riposting easier to pull off. While it's been years since I played the first game, I was nonetheless able to hold my own against Sir Hans after a few minutes of instruction, suggesting that Warhorse's changes have indeed made the system easier to grapple with. The sequel also introduces bespoke fighting systems for certain non-sword weapons like maces, letting players who don't fancy mastering the blade to adopt the simpler approach of cracking skulls.

The introduction culminates in Henry and Hans taking a bath in the river, followed by a goofy scene where they sneak through the reeds along the riverbank, drawn by the sound of peasant women singing nearby. The scene quickly takes a darker turn, however, as the pair's camp is attacked by bandits, whereupon they're forced to flee into the woods wearing nothing but their pants. It's a sequence that shifts between dramatic and comedic multiple times, and the game handles those tonal changes well.

Through a series of unfortunate events, Henry and Hans end up in the care of a local peasant woman, where we get a chance to see the quieter side of KCD2. One of the original’s strengths was how it strived to immerse players in moment-to-moment play, and KCD2 seems just as indulgent in this regard. Simple actions like eating stew from a pot and picking herbs to make potions are depicted with intensely detailed first-person animations, while the Bohemian forests you explore are verdant and alive with birdsong. There's a chance to experiment with the updated alchemy system, which is even more tactile and involved than the first game, with you sprinkling ingredients into a big cauldron, before adjusting its height with a lever to change the heat level. Later, when Henry has to fight and kill a couple of bandits who come looking for him, an optional objective unlocks to bury the bodies away from the peasant woman's home, and you can go through the entire process of putting these wayward souls to rest.

Everything in this initial demo suggests KCD 2 will retain the original’s capacity for letting players steep in its medieval setting. What it didn't show was anything wildly new. For this, the second demo was more promising. This fast-forwarded the campaign to the 50-hour mark, where Henry arrives in Kuttenberg. This medieval metropolis is the largest urban space seen in the series yet, a bustling environment where every NPC has their own daily routines and behaviours.

It's here where Henry encounters the swordmaster Menhard and becomes embroiled in the dispute over who has the rights to teach longsword in the city. To settle the disagreement, Menhard hatches a plan, and asks Henry to steal the fencing guild's official sword and hang it on the wall of the Rathaus (the town hall). This, Menhard explains, is the formal way of issuing a challenge of arms to the town, a challenge which Menhard could then accept to prove his martial superiority.

Of course, this means sneaking into a guildhall filled with master swordsmen, which Menhard wisely suggests you do at night (though you are free to try it in the daytime if you wish). Yet even in darkness, clandestine activities are a risky business in Kuttenberg. Anyone walking around at night is expected to carry a torch, and not doing so will get you in trouble with the guards. Having successfully evaded the city watch, I then have to climb over the wall of the guild house, pick the lock on one of several potential entrances, find the sword, and escape.

Here, the open-ended nature of KCD 2 becomes much more apparent, with the quest feeling closer in spirit to a game like Dishonored than the more directed sequences of the early game. The first time I attempt the theft, things go south quickly. I pick the lock but attract the attention of one of the nightwatchmen, who relocks the door after searching for me. I pick the lock again, and proceed three steps into the building before I'm rumbled. I try to fight my way out with fisticuffs, managing to knock out one of the nightwatchmen, but another has roused the town guard, who come barrelling in with swords drawn to quickly cut me down.

In my second attempt, I'm more careful, and succeed in lifting the sword unnoticed and hanging it on the wall of the Rathaus. This would be a natural endpoint for the quest, but it proves to be far from over. Succeeding in the theft leads to a multi-stage longsword tournament between Menhard and the swordmasters' guild, and you can choose to be sworn in under Menhard's stewardship and fight for his honour and right to teach longsword in the city. Moreover, the quest can alter in multiple ways depending on your actions, both in narrative choices and general play. If you steal the sword but are spotted doing so, for example, the guild will accuse you of the theft when Menhard accepts their challenge. Consequently, the swordmasters' guild is given heavier armour during the tournament, making the fight more difficult on your end.

This elaborate structure isn't entirely surprising; quest design was one of the first game's strengths too. Nonetheless, it certainly feels like the sequel is operating at a higher level amid the busy streets of Kuttenberg. And if Menhard's quest is reflective of the sequel's 100+ hour total, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 could end up being something rather special indeed.

There's nothing quite like the moment right before sitting down to see a new Civilization game for the first time – particularly since this is the longest we've ever had to wait for a new one – and I'm happy to say I came away with a pretty positive outlook on Civilization VII. It's a more daring, risky take on the formula than any of the past few iterations have been, and I think that's definitely the way to go, considering those older games aren't going anywhere and are still quite playable. From Ages that completely transform your chosen civ, to a bold, readable, but grounded new art style, Firaxis is already putting their best foot forward.

The historical 4X space has gotten a lot more crowded since Civ 6, and it seems apparent Firaxis has been paying attention to what others dipping a toe into the genre have been doing. That leads us to the biggest single change Civ 7 is introducing: like in 2020's Humankind, you won't be playing a single civilization for your entire campaign.

There are three distinct Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. The devs were quick to point out that Ages aren't exactly equivalent to Eras in past Civ games, since they're quite a bit longer and more distinct. By turn 125 on Standard speed, I was still in 1150 BCE according to the RP clock, for instance. A campaign should take about the same amount of time as in past Civ games. You'll pick a new civ to play for each Age, with its own bonuses, units, and map graphics. The thing that will stay with you is your initial choice of leader, a 3D avatar for your entire campaign that comes with their own set of permanent bonuses.

The leaders themselves remain visually consistent through the ages – you won't see Hatshepsut in a pant suit in modern times, for instance. And they're all civilization agnostic. Hatshepsut's bonuses synergize well with those of the ancient Egyptian civ, so you'll have some incentive to match a leader to their historical people if you're min-maxing. But you can play her as the leader of any civ. After all, you might be finishing the campaign as the United States, so there will be some mixing and matching regardless.

HEAD OF STATE

Firaxis is also taking the opportunity to include some leaders who weren't necessarily top-level political figures this time, so we don't just end up with the exact same cast. Ben Franklin was specifically called out, though we haven't seen him fully animated yet.

What isn't totally agnostic is your choice of a new civ in the coming age, addressing one of my gripes with Humankind – that you could go from Celts to Chinese with little or no narrative context. Every starting civ will have at least one "natural" path that's always available to them. Egypt can naturally transition into Songhai, and then Buganda. But everyone can also potentially earn access to certain later-age civs that are unlocked by gameplay choices. For example, cultivating several horse resources in Antiquity can allow you to become the Mongols for the Exploration Age. Other interesting progression paths mentioned included starting as Rome, then becoming the Normans, and finally the England.

Transitioning between Ages will come with a period of Crisis, and I got to see just the beginning of one of them for Antiquity: The Rising Storm. Depicting the fall of the great empires of old, it required me to take one Crisis policy card (similar to Civ 6's Dark Ages), where all of them were bad, so it was kind of a "pick your poison" moment. At the same time, new groups of independent people – who have completely replaced barbarians, and can be dealt with militarily or diplomatically – started spawning around my hinterlands.

LONE AND LEVEL SANDS

Transitioning to a new Age doesn't only give you new mechanical bonuses, though. Lead designer Ed Beach used the city of London as an example of how you build cities in Civ 7. Comparing maps of Roman London to medieval London, very little of the former city is left standing. And the same is true if you compare medieval London to modern London. New civilizations are built over the ruins of the past. And through a concept called "overbuilding," that's literally what we'll be doing in the later ages of Civ 7.

Cities are still sprawled across multiple tiles like in Civ 6, but there are now only two types of districts: Urban and Rural. Urban districts can hold up to two buildings at the start of Antiquity, increasing over time, and might gain special meta attributes based on what you build there. For Egypt, I was able to establish a unique funerary district by building both of their civ unique buildings in the same place. So a "science district" isn't a thing you plop down that is going to start out being focused entirely on science. It's just an urban district that you chose to specialize toward science with synergistic buildings.

Rural districts are more or less what used to be called tile improvements. Remember builders? They're gone! Moving citizens around between tiles? Also gone! Instead, what now happens is, when you would gain a new citizen through population growth, you immediately plop down a new district (which will be empty if it's urban – you still need to spend production on city buildings), or possibly add a specialist to an existing one if you have unlocked the civics for it.

In the build I played, you could only place districts adjacent to existing ones, which on the one hand creates tighter and more believable urban cores. I didn't really think this restriction made sense for rural districts, though. I'd like to be able to place those a bit further out, since the look of outlying mines and farms, I think, creates a really nice scene. And the way it is currently, you can't really save room for future urban sprawl, so I ended up with kind of a weird-looking checkerboard of urban and rural, which doesn't feel especially authentic.

Settling new cities also now starts them out as a Town, which doesn't have a production queue and instead turns all of its production into gold. You can still buy things in a town directly with gold, and the cost of upgrading it to a city will be reduced by how much you've built it up this way already. I found this to be a nice option, since I don't really like managing 15 different production queues.

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN

Overall, Civ 7 looks great so far. Civ 6's art style was, shall we say, divisive, and I was more on the negative side, for sure. All these years later, I still think Civ 5 looks better than its direct successor. Civ 7 has taken another stylized, but much more grounded and tactile, approach. The main influences on the art style were painted miniatures, model trains, dioramas, and museum displays. And everything on the map is great to look at. I really did feel like I could reach down and pick these little guys up to get a closer look at them.

It's the first Civ game in a while that really feels "next gen" in a visual sense. The mountains look a bit less… mountain-y? More like isolated peaks than the nice, realistic ranges you'd get in previous games. But that's my only gripe so far.

The leaders, continuing on the tradition of Civ 6, are rendered with tons of detail and personality. We got a look at Hatshepsut of Egypt, Amina of Zazzau (the "natural" leader for Aksum), Augustus of Rome, and Ashoka of the Maurya. On the diplomatic screen, both of the negotiating leaders are now shown interacting, which adds a nice bit of extra dramatic flair.

Diplomacy has also been greatly reworked from Civ 6. Influence is now a baseline currency produced by certain buildings, and you spend it on direct actions that target another civ. Firaxis wants to reduce the emphasis on transactional horse trading, so every time you do something diplomatically, it's more of a specific jab or handshake. Influence also has a fairly low cap, and is use it or lose it, encouraging you to engage in diplomacy regularly.

One really interesting example of this was a treaty Amina kept hitting me with when we were on less than great terms, which would cause my relationship with my BFF Augustus to deteriorate unless I spent a larger ante of influence to counter it. This presents some diabolical ways you can play other civs against each other.

The other really great twist with Influence is that you can spend it during a war to increase your side's War Support, which works like a diplomatic tug-of-war. If one side has invested a lot more influence than the other, the side with less war support will suffer scaling penalties to combat effectiveness and happiness in their cities. So diplomacy is now key to the military game as well, which I love.

AD ASTRA

Even with only three hours of hands-on time, I could probably talk for six or more about Civilization 7. There's so much I haven't even touched on yet, from commanders that can "pack up" entire armies for easier transport across the map, to Culture and Leader-specific perk trees. So keep an eye out for much, much more about Civilization 7 between now and release.

The last time the developers at MachineGames made an Xbox-exclusive first-person action-adventure based on a movie character, it turned out to be one of the best experiences of the entire original Xbox/PS2 console generation. That game was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, back when the core of MachineGames was still at Starbreeze. I bring this up because after I got to see an extended demo of the studio’s newest project, the also-Xbox-exclusive Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I couldn’t help but be strongly – and I do mean strongly – reminded of the Vin Diesel-starring original-Xbox classic, in the very best of ways. Indy absolutely screams Riddick, and because of that, The Great Circle went from something on my most-anticipated list to being far and away the game I’m most looking forward to playing this year (specifically, December 9 on Xbox and PC, with PS5 getting it in Spring 2025).

My hands-off demo began in (where else?) a huge underground temple, with the sun shining down onto a small figurine. Indy picks it up and the door closes behind him. He cracks the figurine open with a rock. Inside is a small block of some sort – a key, perhaps? Naturally, this triggers a cave-in, with our hero remarking, “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”

The player takes over as the camera shifts to first-person (though it will go third-person for platforming sequences). As sand fills the room, Indy shuffles over to a window that’s suddenly become reachable thanks to all the sand. He tumbles into a stand and then a run, a stamina bar showing how much longer Jones can keep sprinting. He uses his trusty whip to make a leap across a chasm as the temple conditions grow more lethal by the second. He goes into a slide to exit the temple just in the nick of time.

MachineGames promises plenty of these kinds of exhilarating action sequences in The Great Circle, which notably – just like in Riddick – rarely involves the use of a gun. Sure, Dr. Jones has his trademark revolver, but, as creative director Axel Torvenius explained, “The key to the combat is to carefully decide your approach,” and added, “It’s very dangerous in this game to fire a gun.” It won’t be done particularly often, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly when the moment comes. “You should firstmost try to use your wits and your whip,” he continued. “To understand that there are optional ways to solve [problems].” Don’t, then, call this Indy game a first-person shooter. It’s a very first-person game, alright, but it’s decidedly not a shooter. It’s a mix of puzzle solving, platforming, stealth, and combat. Just like this team’s first game that starred a certain bald convict who can see really well in the dark…

“The focus for this game is adventure,” said director Jerk Gustaffson. “We want exploration to feel truly rewarding.” As such, one of your primary tools is Indy’s journal. It starts blank but quickly becomes a jam-packed archive of your travels, which will include visits to Egypt and the Himalayas, among several other locales. Furthering the spirit of adventure, there will be times where you’ll wear disguises in order to fit in, like one scene I saw where our favorite professor of archaeology dresses up like a priest in order to infiltrate a heavily guarded area. The adventure focus will even reflect in the gameplay structure of The Great Circle, with MachineGames revealing that the campaign will consist of a mix of linear areas and more open areas that you’re free to wander in.

Meanwhile, you’ll earn Adventure Points by finding journal entry-worthy items and secrets – as well as by taking pictures of key items with your camera – and those points can be spent to upgrade your Indiana Jones to play more like you prefer, be it upping your stealth abilities, combat abilities (like True Grit, which essentially lets you survive an otherwise-fatal blow to get back in the fight), or other skills. MachineGames says there are “dozens” of upgrades to choose from. You can also buy items from shopkeepers, like one I saw that had a monkey beside him at his booth. What these are, though, I have not yet seen.

Much of the combat looks like it’ll involve your fists, but like in Riddick, your foes won’t go down with a simple press of the punch button. You’ll have to skillfully parry, block, and combo your way to victory in hand-to-hand combat. And don’t be afraid to get your whip involved too, by lashing it at opponents’ feet to knock them down, as one example of what it can do for you in gameplay. But your dukes aren’t always going to be your go-to weapons. I saw Indy use a rolling pin in a kitchen to bash a Nazi’s face in. I also watched him pick up a shovel, sneak up behind a Nazi, and whack him on the back of the head. In fact, sneaking looks to be a big part of The Great Circle, with stealth emphasized as a core tenet of gameplay – as it was in Escape from Butcher Bay.

Something Richard B. Riddick didn’t do, though, was bring any friends along with him for the ride. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, will welcome help along the way. I saw a couple of companions at his side throughout my demo across numerous scenes in the game. They’re not always around, but when they’re by your side, I didn’t see enough to know exactly what they’ll be capable of? Are they solely to help advance the plot and allow for more Indy quips? Or will they also offer an Elizabeth-in-BioShock-Infinite-like assistance in combat?

That remains to be seen, but my demo ended with a sequence that showed off a lot of what The Great Circle is going to be all about: adventuring, avoiding traps, and solving puzzles! To find a key that would unlock a temple, Indy needed to sneak into enemy territory disguised as a regular worker. After snooping around for a while, he finds the golden medallion he’s after and takes it quietly (banking +5 Adventure Points). He encounters four bad guys at a table and, this time, walks out of the tent without incident. Upon returning to the nearby temple’s hidden door and inserting the medallion, the door opens. Indy and his accompanying ally go deeper into darkness, using a lighter to illuminate the way. “This hasn’t been disturbed for thousands of years,” the professor remarks. They slowly explore the dark temple before lighting up a torch. At the end of a narrow hallway stands an ornate iron gate. Pulling the lever causes the floor to give way – revealing spikes underneath! The companion saves Indy from being impaled. Indy then uses his whip to hook onto a bar above and then lower himself down to a newly revealed crawl space underneath the floor. He shuffles through, finds a pull chain, yanks it, and the gate opens. Both Dr. Jones and his ally find a mural and take a photo of it (for 10 more Adventure Points).

They come to a sunlit room with a half-obelisk, half-throne in the back of the room, bathed in sunlight. Sunbeams point at a golden mask. The puzzle here is to redirect the sunbeams by tilting the mirrors adjacent to the throne. Your companion grabs the mask after the mirrors are aligned properly. And in a moment of overexcitement, she sits in the throne with the mask and the seat of the throne gives way! As Indy reaches to save her, both end up dragged down to a darkened pit below, where the light of the torch reveals a floor covered in…scorpions. (You thought I was going to say snakes, didn’t you?)

The fact is, this core group of developers at MachineGames – many of whom have been together for two decades – have never missed. From Riddick to The Darkness to the modern Wolfenstein games, this is an incredibly successful team. And now, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a playable Indiana Jones adventure being built using the best parts of the template that this development team used to make its first – and in my humble opinion, best – game of all. I absolutely can’t wait to play it.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Amid multiple leaks and rumors, we had a decent idea of what was going to be at this year’s Xbox Games Showcase with seemingly plenty to get excited about. But when the Showcase finally aired, Microsoft did the near-impossible for any company in a fickle social media-fueled age: they exceeded expectations and drew almost universal acclaim. Eighty-four percent of the 10,000+ voters in my X poll graded it an ‘A’ on the academic scale. Ninety-five percent gave it an ‘A’ or ‘B’.

A home run like this would be welcome at any time, but it’s an especially fortuitous one now for both Xbox fans and, no doubt, Xbox employees alike. Confidence had been shaken in recent months, with dedicated fans rankled by Microsoft’s decision to bring some previously exclusive games to other platforms. Worse, Microsoft joined the tragically long list of gaming and tech companies to lay off thousands of employees early in the year and, more recently, shut down four development studios it acquired as part of a $7.5 billion deal just four years ago. Two of those were household names in core-gaming circles: Arkane Austin, who, their recent Redfall misfire aside, had an incredibly impressive track record; and the one that really stuck in the community’s craw, Tango Gameworks. They were not only Xbox’s lone Japanese developer, but they’d had an unquestionably good run, highlighted by their most recent and arguably best game, Hi-Fi Rush.

While Xbox’s best showcase ever can’t erase the human impact on the laid-off developers nor reignite the creative embers that have been snuffed out at the shut-down studios, it is the best way for fans who remain invested in the Xbox ecosystem to move forward with confidence and excitement for the future of the platform. And my goodness did that top-to-bottom brilliant showcase give me confidence and excitement for Xbox.

Call of Duty debuted on Xbox’s stage for the first time since the Xbox 360 era, with Black Ops 6 already looking like it could be one of the biggest and best releases for the series in a half-decade – since Infinity Ward’s excellent Modern Warfare reboot in 2019. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer could barely contain his excitement on stage in announcing Doom: The Dark Ages, a bold, more melee combat-intensive prequel in id Software’s brilliantly revived and historically iconic first-person shooter franchise.

And speaking of prequels, Xbox President Sarah Bond introduced the “one more thing” game for this Showcase: the long-anticipated new entry in the Gears series, which itself was not a surprise. What shocked everyone, though – which the trailer slowly made more apparent – was that we wouldn’t be picking up Kait’s story in Gears 6, but instead we’ll be going back to Emergence Day and the formation of Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago’s Delta Squad in a Gears of War prequel – complete with a most-welcome (by me, at least) restoration of the “of War” part of the name.

But the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase didn’t just start big with Black Ops 6 and Doom: The Dark Ages and end big with Gears of War: E-Day – it kept cooking for almost the entire runtime. A new gameplay trailer for Fable floored me, as not only was I not expecting to see any more of it after getting our first tiny glimpse at gameplay at last year’s Showcase, but we got to see quite a bit of Playground’s gorgeous new rendition of Albion. The cherry on top was Microsoft committing to a 2025 release window, which means we can already pencil in Doom: The Dark Ages and Fable for next year – my gut says the former will drop in the Spring, and the latter in the Fall.

Oh, but South of Midnight belongs on that 2025 list too! We got a proper gameplay trailer for Compulsion’s first game since joining the Xbox family after it was announced with a cinematic piece last year, and the art style is incredibly beautiful and wholly unique.

Meanwhile, it didn’t get a release year attached to it (meaning, assume 2026 for now), but the game that stole the fantastic show for me was Perfect Dark. The long-gestating reboot of the beloved Nintendo 64 classic (and decently liked Xbox 360 launch title) has reportedly endured a troubled development, but the co-developers at The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics blew me away by showing off a gameplay-packed trailer that showed off gadgets, first-person shooting, and parkour, leaving me optimistic that we might have a slick combination of Mirror’s Edge, Deus Ex, and the original Perfect Dark on our hands.

Even the inevitable mid-show lull that every showcase like this goes through yielded compelling reveals: the ‘90s-set adventure Mixtape feels like it was made for me specifically, Metal Gear Solid: Delta appears to be both a gorgeous and incredibly faithful remake of the classic Metal Gear Solid 3, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle only “disappointed” me with an otherwise A+ story trailer because we didn’t get a more specific release date than “2024.” But it does reaffirm that within six months I’ll be playing the next effort from MachineGames, a studio that has never missed.

In fact, Xbox’s 2024 Games Showcase was so spectacular and packed with huge first-party games that I didn’t even notice that two of their biggest pillars were missing: Halo and Forza. Granted, I wasn’t expecting anything from Halo, as we’re still only 2.5 years past Halo Infinite’s release. But Forza? Surely a new Forza Horizon – arguably Xbox’s most consistently brilliant franchise – is in the works! If you’re Microsoft, you know you’ve had a heck of a showcase when Halo and Forza can stay home and nobody seems to mind.

I suppose there was one rumored thing that ended up not being included: an Xbox handheld. Fortunately, I got a chance to ask Phil Spencer about that directly afterwards, and I’d say he came as close as he could to confirming its existence without formally announcing it.

If this stellar showcase reaffirmed anything for both Microsoft and Xbox fans alike, it’s that a powerful console is great, and Xbox Game Pass offers a nice value option, but a consistent diet of top-shelf games is what matters more than anything else. More of this please, Microsoft.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.