Valorant is now live on Xbox Series X|S– with some serious benefits for Game Pass members. So grab four of your friends and hop into our 5v5 tactical shooter where you’ll need creative strategy, effective communication, and clutch aim to climb up the ranks.

But launch is only the beginning for Valorant on console – here’s how we’ll be supporting the game going forward.

Our Philosophy

Riot Games was founded with the idea that competition should be enjoyable at any level – whether it’s your first Valorant Competitive game after hitting level 20 or you’re grinding to Radiant, competing in our games should feel fair. Competitive integrity is at the heart of everything we do, and it’s one element that sets Valorant apart from other shooters on console.

One thing we’ve learned after 4+ years of Valorant on PC is that y’all are pretty cracked. The Valorant playerbase constantly innovates around the meta and comes up with new strats that surprise even us. Players consistently find new ability synergy between Agents, new line-ups, new flank watches, new ways to use a weapon, better smoke placements – you get the picture. Honestly, we love to see it. And now we’re so excited to welcome the console community into that space and see what you’ll come up with next.

Because of the ever-changing landscape, we’re constantly monitoring how our maps, Agents, weapons, and abilities are performing across different skill levels.

Sometimes an Agent might skew too powerful as players learn and master their abilities. Or maybe a map becomes one-sided as teams figure out how to optimize Agent utility. Or maybe a certain weapon becomes too strong as players hone their aim and learn how to better synergize with Agent abilities.

Over time, seemingly small imbalances can make a game start to feel stale and predictable. And that’s just not Valorant.

What That Means for Players

So, what does all this mean for the game long term? For our devs, it means their work is never done. For our players who aren’t familiar, it means live service and live balance.

We put out patches every two weeks across all platforms to address things like game balance, bug fixes, or QoL improvements. And a few times per year, we release larger updates to an Agent’s entire kit when there’s an opportunity to bolster or tamp down their strength. These kinds of updates typically aren’t needed very often and will only be implemented at a time that won’t affect active Pro play schedules.

So far, since Limited Beta started on console two months ago, Valorant has already seen four patch updates. We’re updating the game frequently, but paying attention to the unique needs of each platform. Balance parity between PC and console isn’t necessarily guaranteed.

Why? While the level of competition and skill-expression is the same for Valorant on PC and console, the game needs to be balanced independently between platforms. With different input methods (controller vs. mouse and keyboard) comes different playstyles. Some Agents shine on console but aren’t as effective on PC and vice versa. So our game developers have to test each extensively and adjust only when it makes sense.

Beyond game balance, Valorant features a rotating map pool for Competitive queue to ensure players get more variety while ranking up, and even occasionally to make changes to a map when it’s out of the competitive rotation.

Ultimately, it’s up to you – our passionate community – to let us know how we’re doing and show us how you’d level up the game. We’re so grateful to those of you who helped us prepare for this day by participating in our Limited and Open Beta periods, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. So hop on, queue up, and frag out.

GL HF.

In Closer the Distance, you play as Angela, who observes the village of Yesterby from afar. Angela soon discovers there’s been a fatal car accident in which she perished. Mysteriously, Angela’s sister Conny hears Angela after her death and begins to follow her guiding voice to help the other villagers. Miraculously, the sisters are able to work together to mend the villager’s grief, bringing hope back to Yesterby. Over time, they discover other villagers are also connected to Angela who also guides them in their lives.  However, this isn’t as simple as it sounds. The villagers of Yesterby have desires and dreams that are not easily achieved.

All of this combines to make Closer the Distance a slice of life-sim that combines a compelling dramatic narrative with fully simulated characters that act on their own – if you let them. Characters have “wishes,” big or small goals they want to achieve, and “needs,” which represent their physical and mental requirements. Fulfilling these Wishes and Needs is your main task in the game, but both vary greatly between characters.

Take Zek, for example: Zek is Angela’s boyfriend and a carpentry apprentice. He’d been fed up with Yesterby for a while and planned to leave, but stayed out of love for Angela. These desires are reflected in two of Zek’s core needs: “Achievement” and “Belonging.”

At the start of the game, Zek mourns Angela and wants nothing more than for her to be alive. His Belonging need is extremely high, making him feel directionless and lonely. We can try to fulfill his needs by looking at the overview that shows all interactions connected to any selected wish or need. From there, you the player can send Zek to play a song he wrote for Angela on the beach. Reminding him of Angela will partially fill his Belonging needs and stabilize his emotions. The better his needs are met overall, the better he will feel, which in turn affects his behavior and decisions throughout the game.

But just performing a song won’t make Zek’s grief magically disappear, nor will it quell his desire to leave Yesterby. Parts of his Belonging need will remain locked, so it can never be fully satisfied.

That’s where wishes come in. Wishes reflect things a character wants to achieve. With Angela gone, it’s no surprise that Zek eventually develops a wish to move to the city. Following the steps to complete this wish and helping Zek achieve this goal not only fulfills his needs but also affects his personality. When this happens, the limits on his Belonging and Achievement needs can change or be removed altogether, allowing Zek to feel happy again.

While Zek is mostly focused on himself, Galya is another story. Galya is the village doctor, a busy bee who feels responsible for everyone in Yesterby. She has a strong sense of loyalty to her best friend Pia, Angela’s mother, but also doesn’t want to neglect her partner, Leigh. Fulfilling her wishes and needs often hinges on social interactions and deciding whom to help or spend time with. On top of that, her “Diligence” need ensures that slacking off is not an option, as Galya will feel stressed quickly if she hasn’t been productive in a while. Luckily, Galya also has some emotional “Resilience,” which she can build up by working out, for example.

As you can see, no two characters are quite the same, and their wishes and needs shape personalities that feel and play differently. Often, there’s more than one way to tackle a wish or need, and sometimes wishes of characters will be intertwined with those of others or may even contradict them.

How you have them spend their days matters in Closer the Distance, as time progresses constantly. But if juggling multiple characters sounds stressful, don’t worry; the villagers are mostly pretty good at taking care of themselves, even if you’re not constantly looking after them. Still, the actions you choose for the characters will determine not only their own stories but the fate of Yesterby as a whole.

How will you guide the people of Yesterby? Will you have them overcome their grief and be able to feel happy again? Find out today, as Closer the Distance comes to Xbox Series X|S today.

Closer the Distance

Skybound Games

☆☆☆☆☆ 2

★★★★★

$19.99

Get it now

Closer the Distance is a deeply moving, slice-of-life sim that tells a story about the connections between family and friends in the face of tragedy. Following a fatal car accident, players take on the role of Angela, a young girl from the town of Yesterby, who finds herself watching over her loved ones as they navigate the grieving process. Using her ethereal ability to influence the townspeople she once knew, Angela’s choices will ultimately determine the fate of Yesterby. Closer the Distance combines several key gameplay features for an immersive playthrough. The game's compelling narrative is emotionally charged and highlights themes of empathy, community, friendship, grief, and closure. Choices-matter gameplay allows players to make decisions that affect the outcome of the story, making each playthrough unique. Closer the Distance offers something for everyone, and its emotional depth and engaging gameplay will leave players wanting more.

Valorant is now live on Xbox Series X|S– with some serious benefits for Game Pass members. So grab four of your friends and hop into our 5v5 tactical shooter where you’ll need creative strategy, effective communication, and clutch aim to climb up the ranks.

But launch is only the beginning for Valorant on console – here’s how we’ll be supporting the game going forward.

Our Philosophy

Riot Games was founded with the idea that competition should be enjoyable at any level – whether it’s your first Valorant Competitive game after hitting level 20 or you’re grinding to Radiant, competing in our games should feel fair. Competitive integrity is at the heart of everything we do, and it’s one element that sets Valorant apart from other shooters on console.

One thing we’ve learned after 4+ years of Valorant on PC is that y’all are pretty cracked. The Valorant playerbase constantly innovates around the meta and comes up with new strats that surprise even us. Players consistently find new ability synergy between Agents, new line-ups, new flank watches, new ways to use a weapon, better smoke placements – you get the picture. Honestly, we love to see it. And now we’re so excited to welcome the console community into that space and see what you’ll come up with next.

Because of the ever-changing landscape, we’re constantly monitoring how our maps, Agents, weapons, and abilities are performing across different skill levels.

Sometimes an Agent might skew too powerful as players learn and master their abilities. Or maybe a map becomes one-sided as teams figure out how to optimize Agent utility. Or maybe a certain weapon becomes too strong as players hone their aim and learn how to better synergize with Agent abilities.

Over time, seemingly small imbalances can make a game start to feel stale and predictable. And that’s just not Valorant.

What That Means for Players

So, what does all this mean for the game long term? For our devs, it means their work is never done. For our players who aren’t familiar, it means live service and live balance.

We put out patches every two weeks across all platforms to address things like game balance, bug fixes, or QoL improvements. And a few times per year, we release larger updates to an Agent’s entire kit when there’s an opportunity to bolster or tamp down their strength. These kinds of updates typically aren’t needed very often and will only be implemented at a time that won’t affect active Pro play schedules.

So far, since Limited Beta started on console two months ago, Valorant has already seen four patch updates. We’re updating the game frequently, but paying attention to the unique needs of each platform. Balance parity between PC and console isn’t necessarily guaranteed.

Why? While the level of competition and skill-expression is the same for Valorant on PC and console, the game needs to be balanced independently between platforms. With different input methods (controller vs. mouse and keyboard) comes different playstyles. Some Agents shine on console but aren’t as effective on PC and vice versa. So our game developers have to test each extensively and adjust only when it makes sense.

Beyond game balance, Valorant features a rotating map pool for Competitive queue to ensure players get more variety while ranking up, and even occasionally to make changes to a map when it’s out of the competitive rotation.

Ultimately, it’s up to you – our passionate community – to let us know how we’re doing and show us how you’d level up the game. We’re so grateful to those of you who helped us prepare for this day by participating in our Limited and Open Beta periods, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. So hop on, queue up, and frag out.

GL HF.

In Closer the Distance, you play as Angela, who observes the village of Yesterby from afar. Angela soon discovers there’s been a fatal car accident in which she perished. Mysteriously, Angela’s sister Conny hears Angela after her death and begins to follow her guiding voice to help the other villagers. Miraculously, the sisters are able to work together to mend the villager’s grief, bringing hope back to Yesterby. Over time, they discover other villagers are also connected to Angela who also guides them in their lives.  However, this isn’t as simple as it sounds. The villagers of Yesterby have desires and dreams that are not easily achieved.

All of this combines to make Closer the Distance a slice of life-sim that combines a compelling dramatic narrative with fully simulated characters that act on their own – if you let them. Characters have “wishes,” big or small goals they want to achieve, and “needs,” which represent their physical and mental requirements. Fulfilling these Wishes and Needs is your main task in the game, but both vary greatly between characters.

Take Zek, for example: Zek is Angela’s boyfriend and a carpentry apprentice. He’d been fed up with Yesterby for a while and planned to leave, but stayed out of love for Angela. These desires are reflected in two of Zek’s core needs: “Achievement” and “Belonging.”

At the start of the game, Zek mourns Angela and wants nothing more than for her to be alive. His Belonging need is extremely high, making him feel directionless and lonely. We can try to fulfill his needs by looking at the overview that shows all interactions connected to any selected wish or need. From there, you the player can send Zek to play a song he wrote for Angela on the beach. Reminding him of Angela will partially fill his Belonging needs and stabilize his emotions. The better his needs are met overall, the better he will feel, which in turn affects his behavior and decisions throughout the game.

But just performing a song won’t make Zek’s grief magically disappear, nor will it quell his desire to leave Yesterby. Parts of his Belonging need will remain locked, so it can never be fully satisfied.

That’s where wishes come in. Wishes reflect things a character wants to achieve. With Angela gone, it’s no surprise that Zek eventually develops a wish to move to the city. Following the steps to complete this wish and helping Zek achieve this goal not only fulfills his needs but also affects his personality. When this happens, the limits on his Belonging and Achievement needs can change or be removed altogether, allowing Zek to feel happy again.

While Zek is mostly focused on himself, Galya is another story. Galya is the village doctor, a busy bee who feels responsible for everyone in Yesterby. She has a strong sense of loyalty to her best friend Pia, Angela’s mother, but also doesn’t want to neglect her partner, Leigh. Fulfilling her wishes and needs often hinges on social interactions and deciding whom to help or spend time with. On top of that, her “Diligence” need ensures that slacking off is not an option, as Galya will feel stressed quickly if she hasn’t been productive in a while. Luckily, Galya also has some emotional “Resilience,” which she can build up by working out, for example.

As you can see, no two characters are quite the same, and their wishes and needs shape personalities that feel and play differently. Often, there’s more than one way to tackle a wish or need, and sometimes wishes of characters will be intertwined with those of others or may even contradict them.

How you have them spend their days matters in Closer the Distance, as time progresses constantly. But if juggling multiple characters sounds stressful, don’t worry; the villagers are mostly pretty good at taking care of themselves, even if you’re not constantly looking after them. Still, the actions you choose for the characters will determine not only their own stories but the fate of Yesterby as a whole.

How will you guide the people of Yesterby? Will you have them overcome their grief and be able to feel happy again? Find out today, as Closer the Distance comes to Xbox Series X|S today.

Closer the Distance

Skybound Games

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$19.99

Get it now

Closer the Distance is a deeply moving, slice-of-life sim that tells a story about the connections between family and friends in the face of tragedy. Following a fatal car accident, players take on the role of Angela, a young girl from the town of Yesterby, who finds herself watching over her loved ones as they navigate the grieving process. Using her ethereal ability to influence the townspeople she once knew, Angela’s choices will ultimately determine the fate of Yesterby. Closer the Distance combines several key gameplay features for an immersive playthrough. The game's compelling narrative is emotionally charged and highlights themes of empathy, community, friendship, grief, and closure. Choices-matter gameplay allows players to make decisions that affect the outcome of the story, making each playthrough unique. Closer the Distance offers something for everyone, and its emotional depth and engaging gameplay will leave players wanting more.

Following this year’s jam-packed Xbox Games Showcase, we’re excited to return to gamescom and connect with fans in Cologne, Germany from August 21-25 to show off even more of what Xbox players have in store. 

The community is what makes gaming – and gamescom – so special and there will be something for everyone this year, whether you’re on the show floor in Cologne or watching at home via our livestreams. This year the Xbox booth will be overflowing with exciting upcoming titles, one-off experiences and fantastic photo opportunities for games coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass this Holiday and beyond. We’ll also deliver three days of broadcasts live from the show floor, join up with our amazing community for another FanFest, and plenty more. Keep reading for more details on everything we’re up to at gamescom 2024.  

Xbox Booth 

This year the Xbox booth will feature over 50 gaming titles from Xbox Game Studios, Blizzard, Bethesda, and our amazing third-party partners – spread across more than 240 gaming stations – alongside amazing photo ops and experiences, and specially constructed theaters for exclusive looks at upcoming titles.  

Attendees will be able to go hands-on with upcoming Xbox releases, including: 

• Age of Mythology: Retold  

• Ara: History Untold 

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred 

• Fallout 76: Milepost Zero 

• The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road 

• Towerborne 

We will also host exclusive theater presentations of Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Starfield: Shattered Space.  

Joining the Xbox booth for the first time, Blizzard Entertainment will make their return to gamescom with multiple offerings for Diablo and World of Warcraft. Ahead of the launch of the Vessel of Hatred expansion in October, Diablo will bring an exclusive public hands-on gameplay demo of the Spiritborn class to the gamescom show floor, with a Diablo Immortal Helliquary boss tournament taking place as well. World of Warcraft celebrates the launch of The War Within on August 26 with the power of a special immersive experience, giving gamescom attendants the chance to feel the thrill of Skyriding in Azeroth.  

The Xbox booth will also have playable titles from our third-party partners, including Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2, Rebellion’s Atomfall, and the return of GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl with an all-new demo. And in our Indie Selects area – dedicated to diverse, exciting upcoming titles from independent developers – we’ll host games including Maximum Entertainment’s Squirrel with a Gun, Noodlecake’s Winter Burrow, 11 bit Studios’ Creatures of Ava, and more. 

The above is just a small selection of the titles playable on the Xbox booth. For the full list of playable titles visit here. Whatever you’re into, we’ll have something for you. 

You’ll be able to find us in Hall 7 of the Koelnmesse, North entrance. See below for the consumer show opening times:   

• Thursday, August 22 – 10am – 8pm CEST   

• Friday, August 23 – 10am – 8pm CEST   

• Saturday, August 24 – 9am – 8 pm CEST   

• Sunday, August 25 – 9am – 8pm CEST  

Beyond the Xbox booth, Overwatch 2 will also have a joint stand with Porsche, highlighting their new collaboration by featuring a life-sized D.Va statue modeled after the new all-electric Macan, along with an invitation for fans to enter a real-life rendition of an iconic Overwatch 2 map. 

Game Pass @ Gamescom  

This year at gamescom, Game Pass is turning up the fun with an exciting setup reminding players that they can discover their next favorite game across devices. Guests will have an opportunity to explore different sections dedicated to PC, Console, and Cloud as they learn about all the different ways to play their favorite games. In addition to exclusive gamescom 2024 prizes available through claw and gacha machines, guests have the opportunity to play the Big Green Button for a shot at winning exciting prizes like:  

• Game Pass tokens (PC and/or Ultimate) 

• NVIDIA GeForce Now cards 

• WD_BLACK PC and Console Storage 

• Cloud Gaming devices (e.g., Amazon Fire TV Sticks, and Meta Quest headsets) that can directly stream Xbox games 

• OMEN monitors 

• HyperX headsets, microphones, mice and keyboards 

Gaming for Everyone 

Xbox remains committed to the belief that gaming should be safe, inclusive, and accessible for all. We are ensuring that all areas of the booth are wheelchair accessible, Xbox Adaptive Controllers will be available upon request, and there will be select demo stations with adjustable-height desks and monitors. We also have multiple American Sign Language (ASL) and German Sign Language (DGS) interpreters and Audio Description tours in English and German for guests who are blind or visually disabled.

Additionally, we’ll have sensory aids and a quiet room for everyone who needs them, as well as “Here to Help” staff to assist players of all abilities navigate our booth and game experiences. Please check out the Accessibility “Here to Help” desk at our booth for support. 

Other Booth Elements

Gear Shop 

Check out the official Gear Shop at the booth to get the latest with gear from Xbox Game Studios, Blizzard, Activision, and Bethesda! 

Can´t make it? Don’t worry, find your new favorite gear online in the following stores: 

• https://shop.callofduty.com/

• https://gear.blizzard.com/

• https://gear.xbox.com/  

Community Area 

This year the Xbox booth will also include the Community Hub! This more chilled out space within the Xbox Booth will be a perfect place for attendees to stop and hang out during the show, and will also feature special programming and activities from titles and teams across Xbox taking place throughout gamescom. Activities will include cosplay meetups, trivia games, meet-and-greets with game developers and voice actors, and more! Be sure to stop by and see what’s on! 

Live from the Showfloor with our Broadcast Teams 

If you can’t make the trip to Cologne this year, we’ll bring the show to you with a series of daily streams from the Xbox booth. Join Team Xbox and friends on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for a deeper dive into some of the highly anticipated games at gamescom 2024, with first-look gameplay, developer chats, new trailers and more. The Bethesda team will also have daily content streaming live from the booth over on their Twitch channel: twitch.tv/bethesda_de.  

Whether you join us for every stream, or just dip in for the latest on your most anticipated titles, we’re looking forward to connecting with fans across the globe and showing off some of the amazing games coming to Xbox.

Wednesday August 21  

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024
  • Start: 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST 
  • Featuring S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Atomfall, Age of Mythology, plus others  

• Bethesda MainStream 
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST  

Thursday August 22  

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024 
  • Start:  6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST 
  • Featuring Star Wars Outlaws, World of Warcraft: The War Within, Towerborne plus others
• Bethesda MainStream 
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST

Friday August 23  

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024
  • Start: 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST
  • Featuring Avowed, Ara: History Untold, plus others

• Bethesda MainStream 
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST 

Keep an eye on Xbox Social channels for the full content schedule in the days leading up to gamescom.  

The live English-language broadcast from Xbox’s gamescom booth will be available in German, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Czech, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish and Turkish, along with ASL and English Audio Descriptions. You can catch the Xbox @ gamescom Livestream on regional Xbox channels on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and elsewhere.   

Livestream Channels:  

• Twitch.com/xbox 
• Facebook.com/xbox 
• Youtube.com/xbox 

Xbox FanFest  

On Wednesday, August 21, Xbox FanFest is returning to host a special community event to kick off gamescom week! We’ll be bringing players together to connect around their shared love of gaming. If you’re planning to attend gamescom or will be in the Cologne area, you can enter for a chance to win tickets to attend.

Login at xbox.com/fanfest and use code FANFEST to unlock the sweepstakes. No Purchase Necessary. Open only to registered Xbox FanFest members. 18+. Ends 08:59 CEST on 5 August 2024. Click here for Official Rules. 

Xbox Coverage  

Our social media teams will be on the ground bringing you live coverage, updates, news, new videos, and lots of fun stuff too. And make sure to keep an eye on Xbox Wire for coverage of the Opening Night Live show, and articles about many of the games on show. 

For all the latest updates on Xbox at gamescom this year, stay tuned to the Xbox channels on X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube social channels, or the @XboxDACH X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube social channels for German-language coverage. We’re using #Xboxgamescom as our event hashtag.  

Editor’s Note: ARK 2 was originally listed as playable on the Xbox booth – this mention was made in error, and has been removed.

The day is nearly upon us, Tarnished: Elden Ring’s largest and, sadly, final expansion launches on June 21. With tons of new locations, weapons, armor, and bosses spanning dozens of hours, Shadow of the Erdtree is everything Elden Ring fans could have hoped for. There’s just one caveat: you need to have progressed far enough into the base game to actually play it.

Since Shadow of the Erdtree fits neatly into the existing Elden Ring lore (and adeptly expands upon it while still leaving a hint of mystery), lowly Tarnished are required to meet and defeat a couple of the key players, Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood, before venturing into the Shadow Realm. We’ll give you some pointers to getting to them as quickly as possible, but it’ll still be up to you to beat them. (Need help defeating Elden Ring bosses? Hit up KingTut33 on Xbox Live and I’ll happily add you to my list of satisfied Tarnished.)

Starscourge Radahn (Normal Method)  

Although you can technically fight these two bosses in whichever order you want, it make sense to start with Radahn. Radahn is a tough boss that is ultimately located in Redmane Castle in southeastern Caelid (yes, the red rot area), but only after you unlock the Radahn Festival. There are a number of methods to doing this. The most straightforward method involves playing through the story as the developers intended, beginning with battling through Stormveil Castle and defeating Godrick the Grafted.

After he’s down, continue on to the Liurnia of the Lakes region, specifically the Raya Lucaria Academy towering above it in the center of the map. Here, you’ll need to fight your way through magic-wielders galore (this is a wizarding school, after all) and platform your way up some massive lifts to gradually make your way to the boss awaiting you at the top. Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon isn’t the most challenging fight in Elden Ring, but it’s certainly one of the most memorable.

Once you’ve beaten both Godrick and Rennala, you can make your way to Redmane Castle in Caelid to begin the Radahn Festival and take on this tough boss with or without the help of the many summons available to you. What would you expect at a festival dedicated to defeating a powerful boss?  

Starscourge Radahn (Fast and Easy Method)

Don’t feel like taking your time and making your way through the game’s golden path naturally? Try this shortcut, which cuts about 20 hours of play down to about two hours.

The Festival of Radahn is triggered by doing certain things in the game. Defeating Godrick and Rennala is the way most players will be able to access it, but you can also activate any Site of Grace in the amber fields of Altus Plateau after getting the right and left halves of the Dectus Medallion and taking the Dectus lift up. So where do you get those, you might ask?

The first (left) side of the medallion is found in Fort Haight in the starting area of Limgrave, only a few minutes ride from your first site of grace. Even better, you don’t actually need to fight any of the enemies! You can run right in, grab the medallion half, and run right out (or die and respawn). Best of all, you can do the same thing when you’re grabbing the right half of the medallion, which is located in Fort Faroth in northern Caelid.

After you’ve grabbed both halves, just head to the Dectus Lift at the north end of Liurnia (on Bellum Highway) and follow the “hoist medallion” prompt. When you’re at the top, ride straight north for a moment and you’ll find a site of grace.

Now it’s on to Radahn!

Mohg, Lord of Blood (Normal Method)

Here’s where things get a little trickier. Even the “normal” method for accessing Mohg is a bit of a challenge and is pretty far into the game (before I dive into the details, there is one important note: This boss is not the same as Mohg, The Blood Omen, who is located in the sewers of Leyndell). To get to Mohg’s home, Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum, you’ll need to play through a good chunk of the game. Following the so-called golden path of the story, you’ll need to defeat all of the main bosses through Morgott, the Omen King, who is located in the city of Leyndell.

Once Morgott has been downed, you’ll be able to access the Grand Lift of Rold, which will take you up to the snow-covered area called the Forbidden Lands. There’s one twist here: the western part of the Forbidden Lands, called the Consecrated Snowfields, is hidden and requires another special, split medallion. The first part of the medallion is found at Castle Sol in the northern area of the Forbidden Lands and requires you to beat the tough Commander Niall boss to get it.

The other half of the medallion can be found back in southwest Liurnia in an area called Village of the Albinaurics. This can be a little tough to spot at first, as it’s under a massive overhang in the dark (it’s not quite a cave, but it’s not not a cave either). As you work your way through the Village, you’ll hear some moaning coming from a large jar. Roll through it to meet Albus, who gives you the other half of the medallion.

Now that you’ve got both halves, head back to the Grand Lift of Rold. There’s now a second option when you hit the lift that says, “hoist secret medallion”. When you’re standing on the lift platform, press right on the D-pad to see the secret medallion option. Now that you’re up in the Consecrated Showfields, find a site of grace and make your way to the southwest part of the area.

After defeating a bleed-inflicting Sanguine Noble and exploring through the ruins, you’ll find a blood-soaked portal that will take you to Mohg’s area. You’ll still need to fight through his mausoleum to get to Mohg, but it’s not too tough given the level you’ll probably be at.

Mohg, Lord of Blood (Fast-ish and Easy-ish Method)

Don’t feel like playing through 40+ hours to make your way to Mohg’s secret palace the more straightforward (yet still quite labyrinthine) way? There’s another method that you can do right from the start. The first NPC you meet when you come up the elevator to Limgrave, White Mask Varre, is the key to this method.

After you talk to Varre the first time, you’ll need to play the game as normal and defeat Godrick. Once he’s down, Varre will move to the Rose Church in Liurnia, which is on a small island in the western part of the lake. Speaking to Varre there will give you the option to answer that something seems off with the Two Fingers. Doing so will cause Varre to give you several Festering Bloody Fingers, which you can (and should) use to invade other players’ games. You only need to invade their game, not beat or even fight them. Once you invade, just use the Finger Severer to leave and return to your world.

Once you’ve gotten the three invasions done, speak to Varre again and he will reveal himself to be a servant of Mohg and invite you to join the Knights of Luminary Mohg. Respond with the “Anoint me” options and he’ll then give you the Lord of Blood’s Favor item, which you’ll need to soak in the blood of a maiden.

The easiest place to find an already-dead maiden is in The Church of Inhibition. This is located in the northeast corner of Liurnia above the Frenzied Flame Village. Just stroll up to the maiden and select the prompt to soak the Lord of Blood’s Favor. (Note that you can also kill Hyetta, who you’ll meet right next to the first site of grace in Liurnia after clearing Stormveil Castle. However, since she’s also a quest and item giver, it’s not recommended that you do this.)

Whichever source of blood you decide on, you’ll need to return to Varre yet again to give him the blood-soaked Favor. He finally inducts you into the Order and take your finger for good measure, leaving you with the Pureblood Knight’s Medal. Finally! You can now use this item to be teleported to Mohgwyn’s Palace. You can either sprint or fight your way through any enemies you encounter to finally make it to the Dynasty Mausoleum Midpoint site of grace, where you can prep for your battle with Mohg.

Touch the Withered Arm

After you’ve defeated both Radahn and Mohg, either in a 3-4 hours using the “quick” methods listed above or in 40+ hours using the longer methods, all you need to do to access the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC content is touch the withered arm hanging out of the cocoon in the area in which you defeated Mohg. Best of luck in the Shadow Realm, Tarnished!

(Once again, if you’re having any trouble defeating Radahn, Mohg, or any of the other dozens of bosses in Elden Ring OR Shadow of the Erdtree, drop KingTut33 a line on Xbox Live and I’ll do my best to help!)

ELDEN RING

Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆ 2017

★★★★★

$59.99

Get it now

THE NEW FANTASY ACTION RPG. Rise, Tarnished, and be guided by grace to brandish the power of the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between. • A Vast World Full of Excitement A vast world where open fields with a variety of situations and huge dungeons with complex and three-dimensional designs are seamlessly connected. As you explore, the joy of discovering unknown and overwhelming threats await you, leading to a high sense of accomplishment. • Create your Own Character In addition to customizing the appearance of your character, you can freely combine the weapons, armor, and magic that you equip. You can develop your character according to your play style, such as increasing your muscle strength to become a strong warrior, or mastering magic. • An Epic Drama Born from a Myth A multilayered story told in fragments. An epic drama in which the various thoughts of the characters intersect in the Lands Between. • Unique Online Play that Loosely Connects You to Others In addition to multiplayer, where you can directly connect with other players and travel together, the game supports a unique asynchronous online element that allows you to feel the presence of others.

ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Edition

Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆ 2358

★★★★★

Get it now

Purchase now and get the following bonus content for the expansion: – ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Bonus Gesture This is a Gesture that can be used in-game for Shadow of the Erdtree content. *Bonus content will be available in-game when the expansion releases. *The player can also unlock this later in the expansion. ELDEN RING can be played immediately. The Shadow of the Erdtree Edition includes: • ELDEN RING • ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree expansion Winner of hundreds of accolades including The Game Awards Game of the Year and Golden Joystick Awards Ultimate Game of the Year, ELDEN RING is the acclaimed action RPG epic set in a vast, dark fantasy world. Players embark on an epic quest with the freedom to explore and adventure at their own pace. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion features an all-new story set in the Land of Shadow imbued with mystery, perilous dungeons, and new enemies, weapons and equipment. Discover uncharted territories, face formidable adversaries, and revel in the satisfying triumph of victory. Dive into the riveting interplay of characters, where drama and intrigue intertwine, that create an immersive experience to savor and enjoy. *Shadow of the Erdtree content requires the base game product. *Other editions are also available. Be careful of duplicate purchases.

ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Premium Bundle Pre-Order

Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆ 32

★★★★★

Get it now

Pre-order now and get the following bonus content for the expansion: – ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Bonus Gesture This is a Gesture that can be used in-game for Shadow of the Erdtree content. *Bonus content will be available in-game when the expansion releases. *The player can also unlock this later in the expansion. The Premium Bundle includes the following content: • ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree expansion • ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Artbook & Soundtrack Winner of hundreds of accolades including The Game Awards Game of the Year and Golden Joystick Awards Ultimate Game of the Year, ELDEN RING is the acclaimed action RPG epic set in a vast, dark fantasy world. Players embark on an epic quest with the freedom to explore and adventure at their own pace. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion features an all-new story set in the Land of Shadow imbued with mystery, perilous dungeons, and new enemies, weapons and equipment. Discover uncharted territories, face formidable adversaries, and revel in the satisfying triumph of victory. Dive into the riveting interplay of characters, where drama and intrigue intertwine, that create an immersive experience to savor and enjoy. *Shadow of the Erdtree content will be available when the expansion releases. *Shadow of the Erdtree content requires the base game product. *Other editions are also available. Be careful of duplicate purchases.

The Xbox Games Showcase 2024 showed players everywhere that they have a ton of games to look forward to. Fans of Activision, Bethesda, Blizzard, Xbox Game Studios, or the countless partners building for Xbox were treated to a peek at what’s coming for their favorite franchises and new games alike.

Players can look forward to incredible returns to beloved series with Gears of War: E-Day and Doom: The Dark Ages, fresh looks at the likes of State of Decay 3, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Perfect Dark,and South of Midnight, a reveal for Starfield: Shattered Space, and much more. The show even extended to Azeroth, with the release date reveal of The War Within, the next expansion for World of Warcraft.

And from our partners, there was a world-first look at gameplay from Assassin’s Creed Shadows, an introduction to your future party members in the greatly anticipated Dragon Age: The Veilguard, an exciting look at the return of Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, not to mention some incredible debuts with the likes of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Atomfall, and Winter Burrow, among many others.

Plus, we brought you a first reveal of new Xbox hardware with the announcement of three new Xbox Series X|S console options joining our current lineup this holiday, featuring the same speed and performance with more design, storage, and price options to fit your needs.

And on top of all that, we also brought the gameplay reveal of a brand-new Call of Duty game with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – and we’re following it up with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct, offering you an enormous deep-dive into the game. If you can’t tune in live, make sure to check back for a full rundown of what was announced in the second part of our enormous double feature.

This is far from everything we have to show you – all this week, the Official Xbox Podcast will air podcasts from Monday, June 10th, featuring discussions with developers and even deeper looks at some of the exciting games from the show. It all starts tomorrow with an extended gameplay look at Avowed, on Xbox’s YouTube channel and podcast services, followed by Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater on Tuesday. If reading’s more your speed, every episode will be detailed in an Xbox Wire post breaking down what was revealed.

But that’s all still to come. For the time being, here’s every single announcement and reveal from Xbox Games Showcase 2024:

Upcoming Titles from Activision, Bethesda, Blizzard, and Xbox Game Studios

Age of Mythology: Retold – World’s Edge Presents its First-ever Gameplay Trailer 

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and cloud, or play it day one with Game Pass

World’s Edge – the award-winning studio behind the Age of Empires franchise – showcased a trailer of truly mythical proportions: with a first look at gameplay from the upcoming Age of Mythology: Retold.

Age of Mythology: Retold will combine the best elements of the beloved Age of Mythology (2002) with modern real-time strategy design, visuals and gameplay. The newly premiered trailer at Xbox Showcase 2024 revealed the first gameplay footage, showing off exciting action and divine powers, as well as some newly redesigned deity portraits. The World’s Edge team also confirmed the launch date for Age of Mythology: Retold – September 4, 2024 – and that this will be the first title in the Age of Empires franchise to ship on both PC and console at launch. 

Age of Mythology: Retold is available to pre-order now.

Avowed Offers a New Look at its Captivating Story 

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and cloud, or play it day one with Game Pass  

This year, brace yourself for an expedition into the uncharted wilds of the Living Lands in Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed. In a brand-new story trailer, we learned more about the incredible journey we’ll be taking later this year, and met Giatta, one of the game’s four companions. As an envoy of the Aedyran Empire, you’re tasked with stopping the Dreamscourge, a mysterious blight wreaking havoc on the tumultuous frontier. Your soul hangs in the balance as you navigate the chaos of the Living Lands and embrace its wonders. Prepare for an expedition into the perilous, captivating, and utterly bizarre unknown where you will forge your destiny and shape the fate of the frontier. 

Avowed will be released in 2024 – and you can learn more about the game’s story on Xbox Wire right now. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct Reveals Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies Details

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Steam, Battle.net, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, or play it day one with Game Pass

It’s official: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the latest addition to the popular Call of Duty franchise, is set to arrive on October 25. Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller where nothing is as what it seems. In this mind-bending narrative set in the early 1990s, a shadowy force has infiltrated the U.S. government and players will be forced to go rogue for the first time.

In addition to a compelling new campaign, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 features new innovations like Omnimovement, giving players the ability to sprint, slide, and dive in any direction and move like a Black Ops action hero across all game modes. Including the return of Classic Prestige, Theater Mode, and of course Round-Based Zombies, there’s something for everyone.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC on October 25. Play it day one on select Xbox Game Pass plans (Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass PC, Game Pass Console).

Doom: The Dark Ages Comes to Xbox in 2025

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, PlayStation 5, or play it day one with Game Pass

Revealed worldwide today, Doom: The Dark Ages heralds the return of the unstoppable Doom Slayer in this upcoming single-player, dark fantasy action FPS from the legendary id Software.

The prequel to Doom (2016), Doom: The Dark Ages puts players behind the visor of the mighty Slayer as they battle demonic hordes in grounded, hard-hitting combat inside an epic, cinematic tale of gods, kings and monsters. Supplementing his superhuman skills and over-the-top arsenal, the Slayer will also call upon his colossal Atlan mech to brawl with titanic beasts and retake the skies aboard his ferocious steed: a jet-fueled, cybernetic war dragon.

Don your Shotgun, Shield Saw and Flail and charge headfirst into battle in 2025 when Doom: The Dark Ages arrives on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Add Doom: The Dark Ages to your wishlist via the Microsoft Store.

Playground Games Asks ‘What Does It Mean to be a Hero?’ in the Next Installment of its Fable Trailer Series

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Steam, or play it day one with Xbox Game Pass

What does it mean to be a hero? In last year’s trailer, that question was answered by Dave, a gardener-turned-giant with a chip on his shoulder. This year, we get a much darker take from Humphry, played by the British comedy actor Matt King. Humphry was once Albion’s greatest Hero, but those glory days are long gone. In Fable, Humphry will be forced out of retirement when a mysterious figure from his past threatens the very existence of Albion.

Playground Games also confirmed its collaboration with Eidos Montreal, who will be supporting the ongoing development of Fable, which will be coming to players in 2025. For Wishlist and more, visit xbox.com/fable.

E-Day Marks a New Dawn for Gears of War

Gears of War: E-Day is the next mainline game in the Gears of War universe, set during the pivotal Emergence Day. Fourteen years before Gears of War, war heroes Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago return home to face a new nightmare: the Locust Horde. These subterranean monsters, grotesque and relentless, erupt from below, laying siege on humanity itself.

In the announce trailer for the series’ next major installment, The Coalition has teamed up with Blur Studio to forge a visually stunning trailer using in-game assets in Unreal Engine 5. It features a new instrumental version of ‘Mad World,’ originally performed by Gary Jules for the iconic 2006 commercial, now brilliantly reimagined by the game’s composer Adam Lastiwka. The trailer made its debut in 4K resolution and 30 FPS with 5.1 stereo sound. These specs, optimized for streaming, do not represent the final game’s performance.

Find out more in our conversation with the developers on Xbox Wire.

New Trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, or play it day one on Game Pass

Become the famous archaeologist and face off against sinister forces as you fight to uncover the truth behind one of history’s greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Brand new gameplay and a scene from a pivotal moment in the game were debuted during the Xbox Showcase. An intercepted message sends Indy and Gina to the Himalayas where their treacherous trek through the mountains leads them to a startling discovery. 

Play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle day one on Game Pass when it launches later this year on Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Take to the Skies on November 19 with the All-New Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, cloud, or play it day one with Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the next installment in the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise. It is the most ambitious consumer flight simulator ever undertaken. It features the largest, most diverse and detailed fleet of aircraft, the most complete representation of airports and air traffic, and the most visually stunning rendition of Earth ever created.

This brand-new simulator is designed to take advantage of the latest technologies in simulation, cloud, machine learning, graphics and gaming. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 goes beyond merely operating the aircraft; it will allow simmers to pursue their dream of an aviation career.

With features like aerial firefighting, search and rescue, commercial flights, remote cargo ops, VIP charter service, air racing, and more, simmers will not only be experiencing the joy of flight, but also dive into the pilot career they always dreamed of. The sky is calling! Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 takes off on PC and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, and will be available with Game Pass on console, PC, and cloud on day one.

Perfect Dark Unveils First Look at Gameplay in New Trailer

Today, we got a first look at gameplay from Perfect Dark, The Initiative’s highly anticipated reboot of the secret agent series featuring the iconic Joanna Dark.

In the near future, Earth is struck by a series of global disasters, bringing ecosystems around the world to the verge of collapse. In the all-new Perfect Dark game, you experience the journey of Joanna Dark, dataDyne’s elite agent, as she hunts down the world’s most wanted criminal, Daniel Carrington, to uncover the mysteries behind the technological breakthroughs that could threaten the lives of millions of people.

The new trailer showed us Joanna’s descent into the game’s Cairo setting, offered us a glimpse at the mysteries behind this near-future ecological sci-fi story, and introduced us to a game that blends fluid traversal, gadgets, close-quarters combat, gunplay, stealth, and more to create the ultimate secret agent experience.

Want to know more? Read our exclusive explainer article on Xbox Wire now.

South of Midnight Shows Off First Gameplay – and the Monstrous Two-Toed Tom

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, cloud, or play it on day one with Xbox Game Pass

South of Midnight – the beautiful third-person action-adventure game from We Happy Few creators Compulsion Games – showed off its first gameplay trailer during the show, ahead of its launch in 2025. We meet Hazel and her newly-revealed companion, Catfish, as they travel through a flooded area inspired by the Mississippi Delta – and quickly find themselves facing down one of the game’s monster Kings. Meet Two-Toed Tom, a gigantic albino alligator with a powerful hunger, and even his own theme song.

The trailer offers a look at combat and traversal, showing off Hazel’s magical weaving powers, and gives us a taste of the game’s darkly gorgeous Deep South setting. We were lucky enough to sit down with South of Midnight’s developers and dive even deeper on the game – check out our exclusive interview on Xbox Wire.

Open World Zombie Survival Game State of Decay 3 Unveils New Trailer

Today at Xbox Games Showcase, Undead Labs revealed a new trailer for State of Decay 3, giving us a closer look at the ambitious open world zombie survival game. This follow-up to fan-favorite State of Decay 2 represents a huge leap forward for the series and the studio.

In State of Decay 3, the game’s world is now years into the apocalypse, with an evolving zombie threat taking over the landscape. You must fight back and reclaim lost ground, carving out a life for your community of survivalist homesteaders. Fans of the series might pick up on nods to some franchise staples in the new trailer: brutal combat; cooperatively battling back threats to the survivor group; permadeath; opening a car door on a zombie while speeding down the road. But the more you watch it, the more you can see hints at how State of Decay 3 will be the most ambitious game Undead Labs has ever envisioned. To learn more, check out Xbox Wire’s exclusive interview feature.

World Premieres and New Games from Our Partners

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ First Gameplay Glimpse Revealed

Xbox Series X|S (see developer website for other platforms)

Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on November 15 for Xbox Series X|S, giving players a chance to explore 16^th Century Japan as Naoe, an adept shinobi from the province of Iga; and Yasuke, a powerful samurai and Assassin’s Creed’s first fully playable historical figure. Today’s gameplay trailer gave fans their first glimpse at what’s new in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – we saw how the two protagonists, Yasuke and Naoe will differ (and complement one another) in equipment and abilities, as well as the game’s wider world, and Shadows’ changing seasons. Stay tuned for a full gameplay walkthrough reveal tomorrow during Ubisoft Forward (starting at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK).

Survive, Explore and Uncover the Truth in Atomfall

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

Set in the rolling British countryside with idyllic pubs, quaint villages, and red phone boxes, it soon becomes clear that things are far from normal. Created by Rebellion, the makers of the much-loved Sniper Elite and Zombie Army franchises, Atomfall is inspired by a real-world nuclear disaster that occurred in northern England in 1957. The game follows a fictional storyline where you find yourself in the quarantine zone five years after the event.

Explore the countryside, villages, and settlements and meet odd people, wicked cults, rogue government agencies and others along the way. Explore this open world adventure and seek out the truth at your own pace. A single player, survival-action game, Atomfall blends post-war Britain with Cold War paranoia, folk horror, and elements of classic British sci-fi to create an immersive and thrilling gameplay experience.

Atomfall will launch in 2025, coming to Game Pass on day one. It will also be available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC. The studio will be revealing more about Atomfall soon.

Prepare to Fight for Your Life in Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Xbox Series X|S, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an upcoming reactive turn-based RPG that will transport you to a beautiful, surrealist new world inspired by France’s La Belle Epoque – a period famous for its stunning and lavish contributions to the country’s world-renowned culture of art.

As a member of the Expeditioners, who are embarking on an impossible quest to end the Paintress’ cycle of death, you’ll journey through a vast and beautiful fantasy world where you’ll battle deadly adversaries, befriend fabled creatures, and discover traces of those who came before. You can wish list the game today on the Xbox Store and follow @Expedition33 on X (formally Twitter) to stay up to date.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Meet the Veilguard for the First Time in a New Trailer

Xbox Series X|S (see developer website for other platforms)

BioWare and Electronic Arts revealed a new trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, where we meet your team of seven companions, each with their own rich story to discover and shape. Together, you will become The Veilguard.

Expanding upon the Dragon Age stories, worlds and characters from previous games, players will enter a vibrant land of rugged wilderness, treacherous labyrinths, and glittering cities – steeped in conflict and secret magics. Together with your companions, you will challenge a pair of corrupt ancient gods, who have broken free from centuries of darkness and are hellbent on destroying the world. Thedas needs someone they can count on, and that person is you. Rise as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight to stop the gods from blighting the world. Find out more on Xbox Wire.

Souls-lite Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Arrives With a Bang on July 18

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

The long-awaited return from Ashen developer A44 is almost here – during the show, we announced that Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn will arrive on July 18. Set in the beleaguered world of Kian, you’ll guide Nor Vanek, a Flintlock weapons expert, on a quest to kill the rampaging gods that have invaded her world.

Blending classic Souls mechanics with a brutal, fast-paced combat system, Nor can use a combination of axe combat, flintlock weaponry, and magic, creating devastating combos – but you’ll need skill to survive. Pre-orders are open now, and a deluxe edition offers alternative outfits and weapon customization options.

FragPunk Explodes Into the Show

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (see developer website for other platforms)

Looking for a new competitive FPS? FragPunk is a frantic, squad-based, 5v5 hero shooter where you set the rules of engagement for every new round by activating power-up cards. With its debut at Xbox Games Showcase 2024, FragPunk rocks the hero shooter genre with fast-paced combat and a plethora of synergies and counterplays between over 70 shard cards, 10 heroes, 14 weapons and 4 maps!

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure Brings Back Our Original Star

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (see developer website for other platforms)

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure isn’t just a return for the beloved narrative adventure series, but a return for its original star, Max Caulfield. Several years after we guided her through Arcadia Bay, Double Exposure sees Max return later in her life, now an artist-in-residence at the prestigious Caledon University.

Unfortunately, calamity is never far away – Max’s friend Safi is killed, and we’ll be plunged into a full-on murder-mystery, with a supernatural twist. Max’s original power to rewind time has morphed into the ability to entirely Shift timelines, and we’ll be exploring two parallel realities – one where Safi is safe and well, and the other in the wake of her death – in order to discover the identity of her killer. Life Is Strange: Double Exposure arrives on October 29, and those who pre-order the Ultimate Edition will be able to play the first two chapters from October 15.

Mecha Break Revealed: Create Your Mech and Take It to War Together

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (see developer website for other platforms)

Mecha Break is a multiplayer mech-based shooter that allows players to choose from a variety of mechs, customize their appearances, and battle colossal war machines on treacherous terrain.

Prepare for adrenaline-pumping battles, lightning-fast maneuvers, and explosive firepower. Mecha Break’s Xbox Closed Beta will be coming to Xbox Series X in August 2024, and will be available to all players in 2025. Mecha Break features customizable mechs, player-created mech pilots, a wide array of mech and weapon types, and three distinct game modes — a 6v6 Battlefield mode, 3v3 Arena mode, and up to 60-player PvEvP mode — to put players in the pilot seat and create the ultimate mech showdown experience. Discover an array of attacker, brawler, defender, sniper, and support mechs, each with unique playstyles and toolsets. Players can personalize each mech with custom full-body paint jobs and upgrade attachments, enhancing their stats to suit their chosen playstyle.

For the upcoming August Closed Beta Test on Xbox Series X, the highlight game mode will be the 6v6 Battlefield mode. Work together with your team and engage in intense aerial and ground combat as you fight for the objective.

Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater Shows Its New Take on a Classic

Xbox Series X|S (see developer website for other platforms)

Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater creates a deeply immersive world with enhanced visuals and sounds, using the full potential of Unreal Engine 5 while keeping legacy controls and voice lines from the original title intact. A new third-person camera and control layout offers players an intuitive introduction to the beginning of the Metal Gear Solid saga as they step into the boots of Snake in a high-stakes, espionage thriller.

Mixtape: Nothing But the Hits – Coming 2025

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, cloud, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

From Beethoven & Dinosaur, award-winning developers of The Artful Escape, comes Mixtape. On their last night of high school, three friends embark on one more adventure together. En route to their final party together, a perfectly-curated playlist draws them into dreamlike reenactments of their formative memories together.

Immerse yourself in the teenage wasteland, playing through a variety of narrative vignettes exploring the pivotal moments that shaped them. The story is delivered through a mixtape of comedic, joyful gameplay, from skateboarding and flying to taking photos after hours at an abandoned theme park, and much more. It’s the greatest hits of teenage friendship, from the first kiss to the last dance. Similar to games like What Remains of Edith Finch, Mixtape ties its narrative to a unique, vignette-driven structure that emphasizes variety, surprise, and comedy in its gameplay.

Featuring music from DEVO, Roxy Music, Lush, The Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, and more. Mixtape effectively blends gameplay, narrative, and music. Join the crew on their last night together as they experience a mixtape of memories, set to the soundtrack of a generation.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Reveals the Time of Opportunities Trailer

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

The new trailer for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is here. Packed with brand-new reveals, this trailer showcases the array of experiences awaiting players, from locations to encounters with mutants and archanomalies. And hubs! Places to have some well-deserved rest and prepare your body and gear for the next intense mission.

In-game footage is mixed with narrative snippets, highlighting the prominence of the non-linear storyline in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The Time of Opportunities trailer is aptly named, reflecting the boundless potential that awaits within this unforgiving landscape. How will you see the Zone? And how will She remember you?

This time, you’ll hear much more of the Ukrainian voiceover. Being a Ukrainian company, GSC Game World knows that many fans are eager to experience the game in Ukrainian with subtitles of their choice. The trailer is aimed to provide a better understanding of what this experience will feel like. The Time of Opportunities trailer kicks off a series of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 showcases throughout this summer. Please stay tuned for additional announcements.

Winter Burrow Is a Cozy Survival Experience Inspired By a Love of Nature

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

Build your dream burrow and explore a charming, snow-coated open world in Winter Burrow, a cozy woodland survival game. As a tiny mouse, spend your days adventuring through brisk environments as you search for your lost aunty, and collect up resources to restore your childhood burrow.

Winter Burrow merges comfy, cozy game elements with challenging yet approachable survival merchanics. Spend time in your burrow, crafting cute decorations to make your surroundings feel homely, knit cozy clothing to stay warm in the cold weather, and make sure you’re prepared for those big days of foraging in the forests. To stay up to date on all things Winter Burrow, wishlist the game on the Xbox Store and follow Winter Burrow on Twitter.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Revealed – A Journey Into the Darkness of the Late Ming Dynasty

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, or play it day one with Game Pass (see developer website for other platforms)

Step into the dark and tumultuous land of Shu in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. This soulslike action-RPG launches day one on Xbox Series X|S and immerses players in the dark late Ming Dynasty, a period rife with warring factions and a mysterious illness turning humans into monstrous creatures. You are Wuchang, a pirate warrior struck by amnesia and afflicted by Ornithropy, a horrific disease but the source of immense power. As you explore the depths of Shu, you’ll enhance your arsenal, master new skills harvested from fallen foes, and evolve your fighting style by sacrificing Red Mercury.

Battle against grotesque abominations, drawing on ancient lore to challenge the creeping darkness that threatens the humanity that remains. As you piece together Wuchang’s lost memories, your choices will lead you to one of several endings—each determined by the choices made, secrets unearthed and the allies you choose to trust. Will you reveal the truths of Wuchang’s curse and bring peace to Shu, or will you succumb to the encroaching horrors? The fate of the land rests in your hands. Nothing is Forever.

New Updates for Live Games

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Releases October 8 – Pre-purchase Now and Get In-game Rewards Today

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PC via Battle.net, Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

Prepare yourself for the next chapter of Diablo IV from Blizzard Entertainment: Vessel of Hatred, the game’s first expansion, emerges on October 8.

Unleash the power of the Spiritborn, a new class that harnesses the mystical spirits of the jungle for swift and devastating attacks. The hunt for Neyrelle begins anew as she strives to thwart Mephisto’s sinister plot. Dive into the jungle region of Nahantu, where new Dungeons, Strongholds, and enemies await, along with a new PvE co-op activity where you can team up to take down challenges for promising rewards. Plus, recruit new Mercenaries to aid you in your quest, grow in power as they progress, and help you in combat with their unique abilities.

Embrace the shadows on October 8! Vessel of Hatred is set to redefine your journey through Sanctuary. Pre-purchase now and unlock immediate in-game rewards. The darkness does not rest – neither should you.

The Elder Scrolls Online Invites You to Discover Tamriel in a New Trailer

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Steam, Epic Games Store, cloud, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

Celebrating a decade of adventures within Tamriel’s Second Era, The Elder Scrolls Online invites you to begin your epic story with a new trailer. Whether you’re an Elder Scrolls veteran or a newcomer to the series, you can explore an ever-growing world, party up with your fellow adventures, and discover why over 24 million players have now experienced the award-winning online RPG.

June also features the launch of ESO’s latest Chapter, The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, now available on PC/Mac and coming June 18 on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Unravel the mystery of the return of the Forgotten Prince, unlock the Scribing System to create your own abilities, and delve into the region of West Weld, a part of Tamriel not seen since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Visit elderscrollsonline.com for more on the Gold Road Chapter and the ongoing 10-Year Anniversary Celebration.

Fallout 76 Skyline Valley Release Date Announced With New Trailer

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Steam, cloud, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, or play it day one with Game Pass

In Skyline Valley’s major expansion of the world map, you’ll cross the Savage Divide and travel to the southern reaches of Appalachia. This picturesque new region, Skyline Valley, introduces fresh locations to explore among the woodlands once known as Shenandoah National Park.

Seek out Vault 63 and uncover its mysteries. Learn the truth about the Lost, the electric Ghouls that inhabit the Vault, and their enigmatic overseer, Hugo Stolz. You’ll chase storms in Skyline Valley’s new Public Event, Dangerous Pastimes, and fight new region bosses, a monumental trifecta of Robo-brains. Skyline Valley comes to Fallout 76 on June 12.

Sea of Thieves Season 13 Update: Being Bad Can Sometimes Feel Good

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Steam, cloud, PlayStation 5, Game Pass

Rare showed off their dark side with a fiery new Sea of Thieves trailer, heralding the return of Captain Flameheart and inviting players to become the boss fight. An all-new world event will pit pirates against Flameheart’s mighty flagship in order to seize it, raining fire on their foes with a skeleton crew at their command and reaping the rewards of their dastardly deeds. This thrilling new encounter is part of Sea of Thieves: Season 13, which arrives on July 25 as a free update for all players on Xbox, PC and PS5.

Starfield Shattered Space Reveal Trailer, Plus Highlights from the June Update

Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, Game Pass

Deep in the dark reaches of space, the followers of the Great Serpent live shrouded in mystery. Begin an epic new story and explore House Va’ruun territory in Shattered Space, Starfield’s first major expansion. Watch the reveal trailer now and experience the story of House Va’ruun when Shattered Space launches later this year.

In addition to the first look at Shattered Space, highlights from Starfield‘s latest major update were shared immediately following the Xbox Showcase. Official mod support with the launch of Creations, the first new quest DLC with the introduction of Trackers Alliance, new bounty hunting features, and improvements to melee weapons are the highlights of Starfield’s June Update. The June Update is now available on Xbox Series X|S and PC.

The Darkness Calls on August 26 with World of Warcraft: The War Within

PC via Battle.net

Blizzard Entertainment’s 10th World of Warcraft expansion and the opening chapter of the most ambitious story arc in the game’s near 20-year history, The War Within is set to launch on August 26.

This upcoming expansion – the first of three in The Worldsoul Saga – will draw you deep into the mythology of World of Warcraft, weaving narrative threads from the past two decades together in a way that will captivate players both old and new. For a limited time, Blizzard is offering the Welcome to Azeroth Bundle,  which includes everything players need to begin their adventure in Azeroth. The bundle includes the current expansion – the critically acclaimed Dragonflight – a level 60 character boost, and 60 days of game time, for $24.99 USD.

Don’t miss out on this legendary adventure! Join the community today, explore the wonders of Dragon Isles, and prepare yourself for The War Within – pre-purchases are available now through Battle.net.

Hardware Announcements

Three New Xbox Series X|S Console Options Revealed

Three new Xbox Series X|S console options are joining our current lineup, and we’re excited to give players more ways to join gaming with Xbox – it’s the best way to enjoy the diverse experiences crafted by game creators. This holiday, our 1TB Series S in Robot White, an all-digital Xbox Series X, and a 2TB Xbox Series X Special Edition in Galaxy Black will be available in select markets (console assortment will vary by market). Stay tuned for updates in the coming months where we’ll provide information about market availability and regional Estimated Retail Pricing (ERP) when we share pre-order details. To learn more about these new consoles, head on over to the Wire post here. 

With the incredible lineup of games shown at the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 and Call of Duty®: Black Ops 6 Direct, this is one of the best years ever to upgrade your console or jump into Xbox for the first time. 

Games can be a powerful medium to express and explore one’s identity in a creative and safe environment. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind allows players to romance and marry characters regardless of their gender. Overwatch features openly LGBTQIA+ characters, such as Tracer, who is heroic, strong, and prominently featured in the game. Tell Me Why tells the story of Tyler, a transgender man, with sensitivity and depth. Games can be a powerful way to explore identities within the safety of creative play while enabling all players to experience new perspectives that may be different from their own.

This Pride month, we invite you to join us on this journey of learning, growing, and thriving. Gaming is for everyone, and together, we can work towards creating a gaming community that is welcoming to everyone and is inclusive of people with a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. That meaningful work is achieved through people impacting others through education, appreciating the lived experiences of others and building empathy with members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

We believe it’s important to support organizations that uplift, empower, and address the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community. In the last 30 years, together with our employees, Microsoft has donated over $16M to organizations that support the LGBTQIA+ community, and in the last year alone, we donated over $1.3M. This year Xbox, along with Microsoft, is thrilled to continue these efforts with a $200K contribution to multiple organizations supporting the LGBQTIA+ community to help inspire conversations, rally community actions, and empower people to share their Pride.   

Additionally, Xbox Game Studios Publishing is proud to continue partnering with GLAAD to produce more inclusive games from conception to design to development. Xbox is partnering with The Trevor Project to help connect LGBTQIA+ players with valuable resources that help support well-being and safety as they play within the Xbox community. Every player has a unique story, and we look forward to future projects where people across the rainbow spectrum may experience the same empowerment. Read on to learn more about how we are celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community this month and beyond:

GIVE

Spotlighting Xbox’s partnership with The Trevor Project

Gaming has long been a source of fun, community, and self-expression for the LGBTQIA+ community. According to GLAAD, LGBTQIA+ gamers are 24% more likely to use gaming as a support to help get them through tough times – with 66% of LGBTQIA+ players sharing that gaming allows them to express themselves in a way they don’t feel comfortable doing in the real world.

This impact is not lost on us. At Xbox, we are committed to creating gaming experiences that are welcoming for all players, and that includes providing a safe and inclusive space where everyone can be their authentic selves.

That’s why we’re proud to spotlight Xbox’s standing partnership with The Trevor Project, a U.S. nonprofit that provides lifesaving and life-affirming services to LGBTQIA+ young people. Since 2019, Xbox and its safety teams have been partnering with The Trevor Project to connect players with resources to support their well-being and ensure they feel safe and welcome when they play on Xbox.

For us, it’s important players feel safe. Our ongoing partnership with The Trevor Project is one way for us to do that. More information on how Xbox supports player’s well-being can be found here.

In the spirit of Pride, we want to share the following safety tips to help players get the most out of their gaming experience:

• Explore your user settings. Xbox offers settings that allow players choice in how they play. Players can select whether to make their friends list visible, choose to receive messages from people who aren’t friends, or block content they don’t wish to view.
• Take comfort in knowing Xbox has your back. To support the broader player-base and LGBTQIA+ community, we take player safety seriously. This includes:
  • In-game reporting tools to help players flag issues of inappropriate behavior or content. Xbox invests in 24/7 coverage globally to help respond to and investigate reports.
  • Moderation tools that work across text, images video and voice, to block harmful content before it reaches players.
  • Access to automatic text filters, which empowers players to customize their gaming experience and decide what content is not okay to receive – these filters automatically block content before it reaches the player.
  • Continuing to create proactive measures to block hate speech and invest in technologies to help moderate potentially toxic communications, while allowing individual expression.

Gaming and Impact with Rewards with Xbox

Rewards members in the United States can earn and donate points to organizations supporting LGBTQIA+ communities with Xbox. The organizations below will be available on the Rewards hub:

• GLAAD: Founded in 1985, GLAAD – the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization – works with television, film, video games, Spanish-language media, journalists, and social media to tell stories and consult on LGBTQ media representation. GLAAD tackles tough issues and provokes dialogue that leads to cultural change through increased media accountability, public campaigns, corporate engagement initiatives, and advocacy programs that help to ensure 100% inclusion and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. (US)
• Outright International: Outright International is dedicated to working with partners around the globe to strengthen the capacity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) human rights movement, document and amplify human rights violations against LGBTIQ people, and advocate for inclusion and equality. (US)
• National Center for Transgender Equality: The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) advocates to change policies and society to increase understanding and acceptance of transgender and non-binary people. In the nation’s capital and throughout the country, NCTE works to replace disrespect, discrimination, and violence with empathy, opportunity, and justice. (US)

Xbox players can earn Rewards points in various ways, such as playing games, completing Game Pass Quests, and purchasing games and other eligible items at the Microsoft Store (exclusions apply). Start earning today and redeem your points for great rewards. Donate your points on the Rewards hub or on the Rewards redeem page.

PLAY

Tell Me Why Available for Free in June on Xbox Consoles, Microsoft Store, and Steam!

Tell Me Why, the award-winning narrative adventure from Don’t Nod Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios Publishing, will be available for free on Xbox consoles, Windows PC, and Steam for the entire month of June 2024. As in past years, the Tell Me Why team encourages players to give what they would have spent on Tell Me Why to an independent trans creator or a trans-inclusive charity in their community.

Explore Games Curated by LGBTQIA+ Communities at Microsoft

Xbox invites you to play with pride.

During June and beyond, check out a variety of game collections that showcase LGBTQIA+ creators, lead characters, and games with inclusive gender and relationship options. Available on the Microsoft Stores on Xbox and Windows, check out the transgender and non-binary community games collection and the LGBTQIA+ community games collection. These collections will exist year-round as part of our ongoing work to create more inclusive gaming ecosystems and elevate content that resonates with communities. For Xbox Game Pass members, explore what games are available to play in the Xbox Game Pass collection and the PC Game Pass collection.

Featured titles within the collections include:

Need for Speed Unbound (Available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Need for Speed Unbound’s character creator allows for multiple gender expressions via clothing, hair, and voice options that aren’t limited to the gender binary. The game also features racing rival, Justicia, a trans woman voiced by trans actress, Sena Bryer, in addition to including LGBTQIA+ iconography in the streets and as decals for your cars.

Starfield (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – In this role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey. Starfield boasts an impressive character creation tool with multiple body types, skin tones, hairstyles, non-gendered features, and they/them pronoun options. Exploration options include pursuing romantic relationships regardless of gender.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (Available on Console) – Play as star and stagehand as you determine the story through conversation and song in this video game for musical lovers. Written by the iconic and openly gay narrative designer, David Gaider, you’ll craft not only a unique narrative, but a soundtrack to your own musical experience based on your choices. Forge your own story and decide who to romance.

The Quarry (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console and Cloud) – Play solo or in a group of friends as any of nine camp counselors in this thrilling cinematic experience that leads down a tangled web of possibilities based on your choices. Enjoy a night of fun before a party quickly turns into an unpredictable night of horror and your relationships are tested by unimaginable life-or-death decisions.

This Bed We Made (Available on Console) –   Chloe Lussier, CEO and co-founder of Lowbirth Games, wants to tell impactful stories that feature unconventional heroes. Set in the 1950s, the story that unfolds in This Bed We Made is tied to real history when being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community was criminalized. Step into the role of Sophie, an indiscreet chambermaid at a hotel filled with secrets, in this third-person mystery narrative game that explores the lengths people have had to go to pursue loving relationships as their authentic self.

Celebrate Pride in Forza Horizon 5

This year’s Pride-themed Xbox art will be added to Forza Horizon 5 as a vinyl: an in-game decal that you can use to customize any car. Show off this unique design on your car using #ForzaRainbow on social media for a chance to be featured! (The vinyl will be available starting June 7 from the Forza Horizon accounts on Instagram and X.)

Overwatch 2 Celebrates Pride with In-Game Map and Calling All Heroes

Overwatch 2 celebrates Pride this month with the return of a fan-favorite map and Calling All Heroes. All month long, the Pride festival returns to Overwatch 2’s Midtown map. Players can look forward to playing on this map as they queue for Unranked and Competitive games and directly in a dedicated play card on the Arcade. Calling All Heroes is Overwatch 2’s competitive Esports series that provides an inclusive environment to aspiring competitors of marginalized genders, including those who present themselves as Trans, Non-Binary, and Genderqueer. This competition returned last weekend, and everyone who tunes in at twitch.tv/ow_esports will be able to earn new drops like the new Monarch Venture skin.

DISCOVER

Xbox Gear Shop

Show your love and support for Pride 2024 with our new limited-edition t-shirts, hoodies and more – designed by and with the LGBTQIA+ communities. Get your Pride gear now!

Celebrate Pride with the new 2024 Pride Collection exclusively on the Blizzard Gear Store! Led through the Blizzard LGBT+ Employee Network, the Blizzard Pride Collection features Pride-themed apparel benefitting The Trevor Project from May 15 through June 30, 2024.

Explore Xbox’s Kingdom of Color

In celebration of Pride, the Xbox logo was reimagined as a crystal radiating with power at the top of a magic staff. The storybook-inspired image also includes a castle with festive rainbow banners and fireworks. The artist, who is part of the LGBTQIA+ community, imagines the Kingdom of Color as a place where people who identify as LGBTQIA+ rule and the magic of Pride is spread to every corner of the realm. Right from the pages of a leather-bound book filled with colorful art and calligraphy text, this image evokes not only familiar stories of dragons, knights, and wizards, but launches those stories into a more inclusive future in which all players find their magic.

Xbox Ambassadors Celebrate Pride 2024

The Xbox Ambassadors Program is celebrating Pride by spotlighting members of the Xbox Ambassadors community who responded to a recent survey about their experiences as gamers. Read the Xbox Ambassadors blog to hear community members sharing their favorite memories playing video games, recommending games that do a good job representing LGBTQIA+ people and experiences, and offering tips on how to stay safe when gaming online.

Pride Dynamic Background and Wallpaper Available Now

The Pride Month Xbox design is available today as an Xbox wallpaper and dynamic background on console – follow these steps to apply the dynamic background:

• Press the Xbox button on your controller to open the guide.
• Select Profile & system > Settings > General > Personalization > My background > Dynamic backgrounds.

You can choose between Games, Xbox, or Abstract dynamic backgrounds. Choose the background art that you want with the A button.

Radical Joy with Microsoft

In the face of adversity, existence itself can be resistance and spark change. This Pride, LGBTQIA+ people at Microsoft share the meaning of joy and invite everyone to spread acceptance, abundance, and harmony everywhere. Join us and discover more at Microsoft.com/pride.

Test Drive Unlimited launched on Xbox 360 in 2006. At the time, it revolutionized the open-world multiplayer racing genre. Set on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, the map offered a variety of landscapes, roads, and locations to explore. A focus on multiplayer aspects made a significant impact: for the first time, players experienced exploring an open world together, driving their favorite cars.

For 13 years, racers have eagerly awaited the return of a franchise that captivated a generation of passionate fans. But this isn’t about tapping into nostalgia, the teams at Nacon and Kylotonn are rekindling the excitement that made the Test Drive games so iconic over a decade ago. It’s a tribute to everything that made the series legendary while (excuse the pun) reinventing the wheel with the introduction of new features and improvements to enrapture a new (and old) generation of petrolheads.

We’re excited to reveal here that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is set to launch on September 12, 2024 and that pre-orders are live on Xbox Series X|S.

It was Test Drive Unlimited 2 that built on the foundations laid by its predecessor, adding a dynamic weather system and a day-night cycle. The addition of a new island, Ibiza, included expansion to social interactions, with new ways for players to interact and connect, and where friendships were formed over friendly competition. The social aspect enhanced immersion, turning the second installment into a true lifestyle-oriented racing game. 

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a new frontier for massively multiplayer online open-world racing games. We’ve fully replicated the island of Hong Kong, recreated at a 1:1 scale. This technical feat took the team three years to achieve. It’s also far more than a neon-lit cityscape, brimming with unique places to explore. Yes, you’ll drift around small alleys and race along highways, but there are also various mountains, beaches and other places to take your driving off-road.

Rediscover the iconic elements that made Test Drive Unlimited iconic in Solar Crown. While exploring a vast open world, shopping in real dealerships, putting your own touch on your vehicles and avatar via extensive customization options and competing against players across the world. Just like the original games, these features can be enjoyed solo or with other players. The open world, dealerships, garages, races, and clan HQs are all interconnected social hubs, where players meet through their avatars and cars.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is much more than a return after 13 years; it’s the highly anticipated sequel to a franchise that marked an entire generation of players. It’s a love letter to the franchise’s rich DNA, while introducing a new map, and providing a high-quality visual and auditory experience.

Pre-order Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown now and experience the ultimate lifestyle & racing adventure starting September 12, 2024.

As Minecraft turns 15 years old, we wanted to take a look back. As one of the most important (and best-selling) games of all time, Minecraft and Mojang’s journey has been incredible to witness – starting as a one-person creation and blossoming into a truly world-changing proposition. 

With that in mind, we thought we’d take you back over the biggest moments in Minecraft’s history, year-by-year: 

2009: Launching Classic Edition 

On May 16, 2009, it all began. Inspired by the likes of Infiniminer and Dungeon Keeper, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson had begun work on what was initially known simply as “Cave Game” a week earlier, before settling on a catchier title: Minecraft: Order of the Stone. Then he was convinced to choose an even catchier title: Minecraft.  What came to be known as the Java Classic Edition lacked much of what we’ve come to know from the game – but the building blocks (pun very much intended) were there. 

Classic would generate a world, and allow you to dig and build freely, creating your own geometric slices of paradise in its technicolor world. Over the course of the year, Classic would split into Creative and Survival modes, ushering us closer and closer to the Minecraft we’ve known for a decade and a half. 

2010: Minecraft Gets Its Crafting System – Plus Minecarts and Multiplayer 

By January of 2010, Minecraft had already amassed over 100,000 players – but some of its most fundamental improvements were still to come – not least making good on that “Craft” part of the title. A crafting system was added late that month, introducing the familiar wood-iron-diamond ‘level’ system for items, and changing, well, everything about how we played the game. Dig-loot-craft-repeat was born. 

But that was far from the only major change. By June, minecarts had appeared in the game, changing how players could travel through their worlds and, in August, the first version of multiplayer in Survival mode popped up. So much of Minecraft’s popularity is built on playing with your friends, and this was the first time we could see a glimpse of how huge that would be for the game. 

2011: Minecraft 1.0 Released – and the First Port Arrives 

If you want a sense of how fast Minecraft grew, consider this. By January of 2011, the game hit a million players. But July, that had jumped to 10 million. And, to top it all off – all of this came before the game had launched its full 1.0 version. That came on November 18, 2011. What came to be known as Minecraft: Java Edition was released during Minecon 2011, bringing everything millions of players were already loving to an even wider audience – even an “ending” to the game with the Ender Dragon boss fight. 

And we can’t ignore that 2011 also saw the game’s first-ever non-PC ports. Minecraft: Pocket Edition launched exclusively for the Xperia Play smartphone in August, followed quickly by an iOS version – from these small beginnings, Minecraft would spread across practically every modern gaming device over the years, becoming the phenomenon it has been in the process. 

2012: Minecraft Gets Lego-fied, Comes to Xbox 360, and Gets the Pretty Scary Update

If you wanted to pinpoint the moment where Minecraft became more than just a game, look no further than when Lego officially confirmed that Minecraft – in many ways the brick-building hobby’s digital cousin – would become an official set. Lego Minecraft Micro World allowed you to build four cubic vignettes from Minecraft in real-life, complete with Steve and Creeper mini-figs. 

In the world of gaming itself, 2012 was no less important. This year marked the first meeting of Minecraft and Xbox, as Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition launched in May, offering a console version of the game to millions of new players. This console edition became the basis for Minecraft’s off-PC future – from here, we’d see the game appear on almost every new Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo console over the years. 

We also saw a landmark new update: Pretty Scary brought a host of new mobs to fight off, and also brought one of the most important blocks in the game’s history – the Command Block became the basis for some of the most impressive creations in Minecraft, adding a level of programming that would allow magnificent ideas to spring forth. 

2013: The Redstone Update Changes Everything and Horses Ride In 

If 2012’s Command Block was the start of something special, 2013’s Redstone Update was when it got really special. Redstone, a block that allows players to power various elements of the game, had already been introduced, but this update opened up a host of new opportunities. Redstone could now be used to power pressure plates, change how rail blocks worked, detect daylight and much, much more. From here, players began to experiment with how far Redstone could take their creations – all the way up to creating working 8-bit computers inside the game. 

On the less complicated side of things, we also got the Horse Update, which changed the game in a more adorable way, allowing you to tame and ride the majestic, blocky beasts and travel your world in a new way. Notably, this was a major moment for how Mojang worked with its community – the Horse Update was inspired by a mod, Mo’ Creatures, and shows how the game has been worked on with the fans themselves (many of whom went onto be Mojang developers, too). 

2014: Microsoft Acquires Mojang and The Bountiful Update Blooms 

I might not even be writing this article if it weren’t for 2014 – when Microsoft saw quite how earth-shaking Minecraft had become and acquired Mojang for $2.5 billion. After two years of working closely together, the two companies came together to shape the future of the game, which has only continued to grow in the decade since. 

In the game itself, the Bountiful Update represented an enormous improvement. Built over a full 10 months, Bountiful saw massive changes to the codebase of the game, invisibly improving everything about the experience – but it also brought floating islands, underwater temples, killer rabbits, and much more. 

2015: Minecon Breaks Records, and the HoloLens Demo Wows 

Since humble beginnings in 2010, Minecon had been bringing fans of Minecraft together to celebrate the game – and had subsequently become the home of some of the game’s biggest releases. Come this year, it had become a truly enormous affair – record-breaking, even. Held in London, Minecon 2015 sold 10,000 tickets, earning a Guinness World Record for the largest convention in history for a single game. 

2015 also saw Mojang showing just how creative it could get with its ideas – the Minecraft HoloLens demo became one of the most talked-about E3 presentations of recent years. The mixed-reality headset could effectively create parts of a Minecraft world amid the real world around you, offering a perspective on the game no one could have imagined. While it never became a full product, it’s a brilliant evocation of how restlessly creative Mojang is with its game. 

2016: Hitting 100 Million Sales, and Minecraft: Education Edition Launches 

There was no doubt that Minecraft was already a worldwide concern, but 2016 saw its biggest cultural landmark yet – passing 100 million copies sold. In 2016, 53,000 people were buying Minecraft every day – and four copies were even sold in Antarctica. The game has now passed triple that number, but it was here that Minecraft truly set out its stall as one of the most-loved, most important games of all time. 

Its influence was so strong, in fact, that 2016 also saw the launch of Minecraft: Education Edition (now simply Minecraft Education). Developed alongside Xbox Game Studios, this version of the game was designed to be used in the classroom, and has allowed kids to build collaboratively, learn from educators inside the game itself, and been updated to include worlds that help learning on Cyber Safety, natural history, and much, much more. 

2017: The Better Together Update Unites Players, Minecraft Marketplace Empowers Them 

For years, players had been able to get Minecraft on their consoles, but 2017’s Better Together helped make that all the more significant. This was the moment that Mojang began to bring platforms together, allowing anyone with the Bedrock Edition of the game to play together, no matter what device they were playing on. It was a gigantic step, and a true piece of Minecraft magic. 

In the same year, Mojang doubled down on its commitment to its community with Minecraft Marketplace – a store that sells curated creator-made skins, texture packs, and maps. Effectively, it offered modders – a huge part of Minecraft’s success over the years – to make money from their creations, and opened the door to literally millions of more people to access their hard work. 

2018: Update Aquatic Opens Up New Worlds 

70% of Earth is covered with water, and while that ratio may differ in your Minecraft world, that’s still a lot of space you might otherwise not see. Not so after Update Aquatic – the biggest update to Minecraft’s oceans saw new mobs, blocks, and mysteries added to the game’s underwater realms. 

From dolphins and turtles to the only-slightly-horrifying Drowned enemies, there was a lot to play with under the sea, not to mention buried treasure, shipwrecks, and reefs to explore. 

2019: 10 Years of Minecraft, and the Village & Pillage Update Storms In 

A decade is a very long time in gaming, but it was just the start for Minecraft. The 10-year anniversary of the game went hard, not least with a beautiful map that acted as an interactive museum about the game itself – and a re-release of the Classic Edition of the game to show you just how far the game had come. 

Looking forward, we also saw the Village & Pillage update, which populated your world in new ways. Revamped villages (and their villagers) now sprung up across the biomes, offering trading, jobs, and more ways to interact. But to combat all this loveliness, we also saw the addition of Pillagers, a new faction of bandit mobs who’d roam the map looking to spoil your good time. Also, pandas were added, which is only ever a good thing. 

2020: Nether Update Takes Us Deeper Underground, and Minecraft Dungeons Arrives

The Nether had long been an object of fascination and terror for Minecraft players, offering a whole other dimension to the game. But the Nether Update changed this world of danger forever, adding new biomes and mobs that turned it from a curious, dangerous place into a true realm to explore in itself. 

Meanwhile, Mojang also saw fit to release the biggest Minecraft spin-off yet – Minecraft Dungeons twisted the original game’s basics into an all-new action experience. In partnership with Double Eleven, this game offers a new story-driven approach to the Minecraft universe, transforming familiar items, mobs, and blocks into dungeon crawling essentials. 

2021: Minecraft Passes 1 Trillion Views on YouTube, While Caves and Cliffs Emerges 

YouTube has been an incredibly important part of Minecraft’s history, with creators across the globe enjoying and sharing the game, and becoming famous in their own right as a result. If you want a sense of quite how intertwined the two became, Minecraft became the first entertainment franchise to break through the 1 trillion views mark on YouTube. As YouTube itself put it: “If each of those one trillion views were just one second long, that would add up to over 30,000 years.” Please, take it from me, don’t try and catch up on all of it. 

Inside the game, we saw an update so massive it had to be split into two parts. Caves & Cliffs was the most ambitious update Mojang had ever put together to this point, not only adding the expected new mobs, items, and blocks, but adding entire new biomes and overhauling how Minecraft worlds themselves were generated. 

2022: New Default Skins Added and The Wild Update Bursts Forth 

Skin-swapping had been easy for a long time, but good old default skins Steve and Alex were probably a little lonely come 2022. Enter Noor, Sunny, Ari, Zuri, Makena, Kai, and Efe – new default skins that let players express themselves more easily than ever while jumping into their world. 

Meanwhile, the Wild Update included even more new biomes on top of 2021’s Caves & Cliffs, including the Deep Dark, a biome only found underground, replete with ancient cities to discover, and the terrifying, blind Warden enemy. Also: frogs! 

2023: Minecraft Legends Offers Another New Adventure, and Trails & Tales Launches

Minecraft Dungeons was only the start. Last year, Minecraft Legends arrived to offer another new look at how Minecraft could be adapted. This action strategy game zoomed way out to offer you a bird’s eye view of the Overworld – and an army of mobs to help you protect it from Piglin hordes. 

In Minecraft itself, the Trails & Tales update offered new means of self-expression in your world, not to mention added new stories underground with the addition of archeology in desert biomes. Count yourself lucky if you find the new, rare Cherry Blossom biome – and maybe find your way there on the new camel mob, which has space for you and a friend on its back. 

2024: Looking to the Future 

And so we reach 2024, as Minecraft turns 15. You might think Mojang might want a bit of a break, but not so – they’ve already released the Armored Paws drop, and announced a massive birthday sale, but there’s so much more still to come. From the upcoming Tricky Trials update to secrets yet to be revealed, this 15th year is, somehow, only the beginning. 

Minecraft

Microsoft Studios

☆☆☆☆☆ 2009

★★★★★

$19.99 $9.99

Get it now

Xbox One X Enhanced

Xbox Game Pass

Explore randomly generated worlds and build amazing things from the simplest of homes to the grandest of castles. Play in creative mode with unlimited resources or mine deep into the world in survival mode, crafting weapons and armor to fend off the dangerous mobs. Scale craggy mountains, unearth elaborate caves and mine large ore veins. Discover lush cave and dripstone cave biomes. Light up your world with candles to show what a savvy spelunker and master mountaineer you are! FEATURES: If you can dream it, you can build it. Put your imagination and limitless resources to work with Creative Mode. Battle mobs, construct shelters and explore the landscape – it’s all in a day’s work when you try to survive and thrive in Survival Mode. New tools, locations and spaces are yours to explore, thanks to our regular updates. Cross-platform play for up to eight players across Windows, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox and mobile devices. Discover skin, texture and mash-up packs from the community! Find out more at minecraft.net/marketplace. REALMS PLUS: Play with up to 10 friends cross-platform in worlds that exist any time, anywhere – and get access to over 150 pieces of Marketplace content. Try a free 30-day trial in-app and learn more at minecraft.net/realms/bedrock. You can also play Minecraft with Xbox Game Pass – check it out at xbox.com/gamepass.

The Asian and Pacific Islander communities have long been a vibrant and integral part of the global gaming ecosystem. Building upon the foundations laid in the early days of video game development, Xbox is proud to innovate in gaming spaces and champion beloved game titles thanks to the incredible work of developers and artists who identify as part of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities. The rich storytelling traditions, innovative technology, and unique artistic perspectives from these regions continue to enrich the gaming world, offering players a wide array of experiences that challenge, entertain, and inspire.

Developers often draw upon their lived experiences to help inform elements of their games. This is also true for many developers within the Asian and Pacific community, who will sometimes feature traditional folklore, art, and philosophy in games. This not only introduces gamers to new narratives and aesthetics but also promotes a greater understanding and appreciation of these cultures. Moreover, the rise of competitive gaming, or esports, has seen players from these communities rise to the top, showcasing their skills on the world stage and inspiring a new generation of gamers. We are also partnering with two nonprofits who live these values. They share our goal of sharing the joy of play and community across the globe and providing opportunities to students and those interested in the industry to learn and gain experience in the world of esports, technology, and game design.

The contributions of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities are not just limited to content creation. The community is also full of avid gamers, forming a significant portion of the player base and actively participating in online communities. Their feedback and engagement are crucial in shaping the development of games, ensuring they remain relevant and enjoyable for a global audience. Xbox is committed to supporting and celebrating the diversity within our community, recognizing that it is the blend of different cultures and ideas that drives innovation and makes the gaming world so dynamic and exciting.  After all, games allow players to feel seen, and can also be a tool for empathy and provide insights into underrepresented communities’ experiences. Here’s how we are supporting Asian and Pacific Islander communities this year:

GIVE

Xbox is Partnering with GameTan and Nevada Esports Education League

This year, Xbox is excited to announce our collaboration with two exceptional nonprofit organizations dedicated to enriching their communities through the power of gaming and esports education. These partnerships are a testament to our commitment to increasing representation and building empathy through the power of play. By working closely with these nonprofits, we aim to create inclusive spaces where the thrill of competition and the spirit of teamwork can thrive through the lens of Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

These nonprofits embody our core mission: to spread the joy of gaming far and wide, and to build strong, supportive networks of gamers within the Asian and Pacific Islander communities. This work is pivotal in unlocking new possibilities, as they expand gaming from mere entertainment into a pathway for educational and professional opportunities. Through these partnerships, we are opening doors to new experiences, empowering individuals with the skills and confidence to explore the dynamic world of esports and gaming, and fostering a community that celebrates underrepresented communities and inclusion. Read more about each organization below:

GameTan (Within HauTutū) – Based in New Zealand, and working within the nonprofit HauTutu, GameTan provides kids the opportunity to learn and step into the world of gaming, esports, and technology. Through various events, and projects, they allow students to step into leadership roles and gain experience at a young age. They also host game clubs where they provide a space for the community to come together through food and video games. These game clubs also allow GameTan to help homeless children get a meal, build community, and also learn about opportunities within the gaming, esports, and tech industries. This year, Xbox will be providing a donation to support GameTan in furthering their mission and programs.

GameTan’s mission has 4 main pillars: 

• “In order for our kids to change the future, we as teachers must change our approach.” 

Me aro ngā kaiako i ngā wawata o ngā tauira, kia mārama ngā tauira i te anamata 

• Game-Led Learning: Where Fun Meets Future Skills 

Ako Ātea : Te tūtakitanga a tākaro me pūkenga ki te anamata 

• Whānau-Centered Innovation: Tech for All 

Te auahatanga o te whānau: Mō te ao katoa te hangarau. 

• Creating Career Pathways: From Local Talent to Global Leaders 

Whaohia te ara ki tua o paerangi: Ngā rangatira o te kainga, Ngā rangatira o te ao 

GameTan, where culture meets technology, and innovation knows no bounds. Together, we’re not just playing games; we’re changing the game. 

Nevada Esports Education League (NEEL) – The Nevada Esports Education League (NEEL), Nevada’s sole nonprofit dedicated to Esports, pioneers programs for youth focusing on career development, STEM outreach, and community engagement. From organizing charity Twitch streams to volunteering at Esports conventions, and hosting community tournaments and boot camps, NEEL actively engages youth and cultivates inclusive communities, particularly among Asian American Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AAPINHPI) groups. This year Xbox will be providing a donation that NEEL will leverage to prioritize mental health awareness initiatives tailored for AAPINHPI gamers, champion diversity and inclusion in esports, and celebrate cultural heritage through gaming events. Collaborating with Xbox, NEEL is committed to empowering AAPINHPI youth and fostering positive change within the esports industry, highlighting gaming’s potential as a platform for social impact and community involvement.

Gaming and Impact with Microsoft Rewards

Rewards members in the United States can earn and donate points to organizations supporting Asian and Pacific Islander communities with Xbox. The organizations below will be available on the Rewards hub: 

• Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC – AAJC works through strategic policy advocacy, active community education, and impactful litigation to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all.
• AAPI Equity Alliance – AAPI Equity Alliance (AAPI Equity) is dedicated to improving the lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders through civic engagement, capacity building, and policy advocacy.
• Stop AAPI Hate – Stop AAPI Hate advances equity & justice by dismantling systemic racism & building a multiracial movement to end anti-Asian American & Pacific Islander hate through community empowerment, solidarity & advocacy for comprehensive solutions.

Xbox players can earn Rewards points in various ways, such as playing games, completing Game Pass Quests, and purchasing games and other eligible items at the Microsoft Store (exclusions apply). Start earning today and redeem your points for great rewards. Donate your points on the Rewards hub or on the Microsoft Rewards redeem page. 

PLAY

Explore Games Curated by Asian and Pacific Islander Communities at Microsoft

Pacific Islander Heritage month featuring water, fire, and two characters from the Ramayana, Sukhrip and Madchanu on a stage with embroidered curtains.

Gaming would not be what it is today without the contributions, perspectives, and influence from Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Here at Xbox, we want to honor this richly diverse set of communities by providing engaging gaming experiences that represent a myriad of histories and heritage. ​

During May and beyond, check out a variety of game collections that reflect the vast diversity of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. These collections showcase creators, lead characters, and games inspired by these cultures. Available on the Microsoft Stores on Xbox and Windows, check out the collections of East, South, and Southeast Asian Community Games and Pacific Islander and Indigenous Community Games. These collections will exist year-round as part of our ongoing work to create more inclusive gaming ecosystems and elevate content that resonates with communities.​

Featured titles within the collections available with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass include:​

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Japanese creators Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano designed this game to bring players a modern take on a classic JRPG experience. Lead up to 100+ playable characters through a war-torn world with diverse cultures and values that only you can save. ​

Mineko’s Night Market (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Play this cozy game as Mineko, a curious girl who has just arrived at her new home on a struggling Japanese-inspired island at the base of Mount Fugu. Mineko’s Night Market celebrates Japanese culture while introducing a heartwarming story about friendship, tradition, and many, many cats. The husband-and-wife team of Meowza Games, Brent and Brandi Kobayashi, incorporated inspiration from Studio Ghibli and the real-life cat island in Aoshima, Japan.​

Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Enter a realm based on ancient Chinese mythology and aesthetics in a real-time role-playing adventure from Taiwanese director, Yao Zhuangxian. Command a memorable party of characters, tame spirit creatures, play mini-games, and explore a vast world full of side quests to discover.​

Thirsty Suitors (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – A celebration of South Asian identity, Thirsty Suitors is a game about culture, intergenerational trauma, and expressing oneself. Follow Jala Jayaratne, a bisexual daughter of immigrants from India and Sri Lanka, in this story-driven adventure that unfolds through skateboarding, cooking, and turn-based battles against exes. Created by Outerloop Games, a minority–led indie game studio that aims to create accessible games with depth about underrepresented cultures and themes. ​

Venba (Available with Xbox Game Pass on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Cook delicious South Indian cuisine and experience the journey of an immigrant Tamil family, from lead developer Abhi Swaminathan. Take on the role of a loving mother and restore lost recipes in this narrative cooking simulator about family, love, loss, and exploring new challenges that arise in day-to-day life.

DISCOVER

Discover the Inspiration Behind the Xbox Logo Design

For Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Xbox commissioned an artist from Thailand to redesign the Xbox logo. The artist was inspired by the Ramayana, an epic tale originally from India and has also influenced other Asian peoples, including those in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Laos. In Thailand, the story of the Ramayana is told through Kohn, a traditional Thai dance.  Just as players create avatars to assume an identity in a game, Kohn performers wear masks to portray different characters.

The Xbox design features Sukhrip (Sugriva), the son of the sun, and Madchanu, the son of a mermaid.  The stage scene focuses on Songkran, the Thai New Year, which is celebrated in April. Traditionally, this celebration includes splashing with water to cool down from the hot sun. In this scene, Madchanu playfully splashes Sukhrip with water, while the Xbox logo represents the vibrant sun, capturing the festive spirit of Songkran.

The stage curtains include embroidered wild orchid flowers in the traditional style of Northern Thailand.  The pattern also includes fog and rivers, embodying the beautiful, mountainous landscape of the region.

Xbox Ambassadors Celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2024

As part of Xbox’s celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we connected with Xbox Ambassadors of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage about their favorite gaming experiences. They shared ways video games can highlight their heritage in positive and authentic ways. Hear more from Xbox Ambassadors in this Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month blog.

APIHM Dynamic Background and Wallpaper Available Now

The Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Xbox design is available today as an Xbox wallpaper and dynamic background on console – follow these steps to apply the dynamic background:

• Press the Xbox button on your controller to open the guide.
• Select Profile & system > Settings > General > Personalization > My background > Dynamic backgrounds.

You can choose between Games, Xbox, or Abstract dynamic backgrounds. Choose the background art that you want with the A button.

Mark your calendars! The Xbox Games Showcase will be livestreamed on June 9, 2024, starting at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST (additional time zones below).

Like our double-feature last year with Starfield Direct, immediately following the Showcase we’ll be airing a special deep-dive into the next installment of a beloved franchise. We can’t say much, so for now we’ll call it the Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct.

This will also be our first Showcase featuring games from our portfolio of studios across Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios, in addition to titles from our third-party partners.

You’ll be able to enjoy both of our June 9 livestreams live through a variety of outlets, and in over 30 languages, and American Sign Language and English Audio Descriptions:

• YouTube.com/Xbox
• Twitch.tv/Xbox
• Twitch.tv/XboxASL
• Facebook.com/Xbox

Airtime for the Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct in local time zones:

• PT: June 9, 10am
• ET: June 9, 1pm
• BST: June 9, 6pm
• CET: June 9, 7pm
• JST: June 10, 2am
• AEST: June 10, 3am

June 9’s double-feature broadcast also kicks off a week’s worth of coverage here on Xbox Wire and The Official Xbox Podcast, featuring updates and deep-dives on a ton of games.

Xbox will host a premier viewing event in Los Angeles and Xbox FanFest is giving away tickets! Enter the FanFest Sweepstakes, which begins on May 2, for a chance to win tickets or even a free trip to get you there. To get notified with more details about the event and sweepstakes, sign up for FanFest at aka.ms/XboxFanFest.

Ticket Sweepstakes: No Purchase Necessary. Open only to registered Xbox FanFest members. 18+ who are legal residents of the 50 U.S. + DC. Entry Period 5/2/24 – 5/13/24. Click here for Official Rules. Trip Sweepstakes: No Purchase Necessary. Open only to registered Xbox FanFest members. 18+. Entry Period 5/2/24 – 5/13/24. Click here for Official Rules.

In the meantime, be sure to check back here on Xbox Wire for more information on the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct on June 9, 2024.

Unforgiving, stunning, hellishly challenging: the Nordschleife, the oldest part of the legendary Nürburgring in the Eifel region, is also known as the “Green Hell”. The term derives from Formula 1 world champion Jackie Stewart, who looked down on the track surrounded by forests from a helicopter in 1968 and said: “It’s going to be a green hell this weekend”. We spoke to Alexander Gerhard, Head of Communications Nürburgring, and creator rAii, racing game expert and part of “Die Pixelhelden” on YouTube, to explore the legend of the Nordschleife.

After many years of development, Forza Motorsport was released in October 2023 including the Nürburgring Grand Prix circuit and numerous other world-famous racetracks. In February, Update 5 brought the iconic Nordschleife to the game. The 20.8-kilometer track is now available free of charge for all players.

But what exactly is it that makes the Nordschleife so fascinating? Who else could answer this question rather than Alexander Gerhard, where squealing tires and roaring engines are part of everyday life at his workplace at the Nürburgring, and rAii, who has turned his passion for racing into a profession as a creator.

“The Nürburgring was built in 1927 with extraordinary length through the middle of the Eifel forests. It remains the longest permanent race track to this day. Even back then, the racing drivers who came to the Nürburgring knew what an incredibly special and challenging track the Nürburgring actually is,” explains Alexander, quoting Rudolf Caracciola, who won the first car race on the Nürburgring and described his experience as follows:

“When we came to the newly opened Nürburgring in 1927, we opened our eyes. We had never experienced anything like it. There was a road in the middle of the Eifel mountains, a closed loop with almost 180 bends spread over 22 kilometers. It was a track with gradients that were a sharp blow to the engine, but also with unspeakably beautiful views far across the country, of valleys and villages.”

On the one hand, it is the almost 100-year history that still inspires awe and respect among motorsport enthusiasts and professional racing drivers alike: 1000-kilometer races, fatal accidents, unforgettable Formula 1 races, new records and impressive performances by the best drivers in the world. Record-breaking world champion Michael Schuhmacher made such a lasting impression that an entire corner was named after him. When Niki Lauda’s Ferrari went up in flames on the Nordschleife in 1976, the entire motorsport world held its breath.

In addition to the history, it is the track itself that accounts for the legend of the Nordschleife: the unique layout, the dynamics, the differences in altitude and the unique atmosphere. If you want to complete a lap, you have to tackle over 70 corners and 300 meters of elevation gain. An experience that demands everything from the driver and is now possible in Forza Motorsport.

In Forza Motorsport, players will discover what makes this circuit an adrenaline-filled crucible, one which pushes professionals, manufacturers, cars – and now, finally, Forza fans – to their limits. YouTuber and racing expert rAii has already put the track through its paces in countless racing games, including the new Forza Motorsport, and shared his thoughts on the presentation with Xbox Wire DACH: “It just feels like the Nordschleife that you know. That’s the most important thing.”

In comparison with its predecessors, he rates it as the best Nordschleife ever implemented in a Forza Motorsport game: “When you drive on the track, even if some things have been toned down a bit, you just feel like you’re driving on the Nordschleife. The power of the consoles allows for better visuals – not just graphically, but also physically.”

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is: do the turn-in points feel right, does the atmosphere feel right, are the height differences and crests noticeable? All of this has already been implemented very well,” explains rAii.

According to rAii, the new penalty system means that elements such as tire stacks placed in the way, which were intended to prevent unauthorized shortcuts in earlier parts of the series but at the same time reduced the realism and atmosphere, are no longer necessary. Even though the branding and a few additional spotlights have of course already resulted in a few differences, the Forza Motorsport version is still the most modern and up-to-date representation of the Nordschleife at the present time.

However, the quality of a racing game depends not only on the atmosphere and realism, but also on the fun of driving: “The whole track is awesome. It’s like a rollercoaster ride. On the Nordschleife, every lap is always fun. The Nordschleife is one of the few tracks that I could drive non-stop. Because it’s multi-faceted and because it’s long – long can also be boring, but it’s not.”

Does rAii have a favorite section? “Actually yes, the approach to the high eight and the high eight itself. I kind of like the way you position the vehicle after the carousel and then drive the whole section downhill again. I love going to the absolute limit there and getting everything out of it. Even though you can’t overtake there!”

Anyone who has installed Forza Motorsport and Update 5 can get started and enter the “Green Hell”. The only question that remains is which car to get into. rAii has a recommendation for this: “GT3 racing cars are always cool to drive. That’s probably the standard answer. But the big advantage of Forza Motorsport, even compared to other racing games, is that you can also drive road cars on it. You shouldn’t underestimate how much fun it is to use vehicles on the track that weren’t primarily built for the racetrack.

“That’s when you realize how much a track like this can challenge a vehicle. Of course, the sporty models are the most fun. Or even better, so-called racing cars with road approval, such as a Porsche 911 GT3 RS or an AMG GT Black Series. That would be my first choice, the best of both worlds!”

For Alexander Gerhard, the fascination and appeal of the track in the game is exactly the same as in real life: “You want to conquer these 73 corners and 300 meters of elevation that each lap offers. Everyone is proud when they improve by a second after completing the course, because they know that it takes an enormous effort and perfection to drive just under 21 kilometers without making a mistake and gaining a second. But there’s no such thing as the perfect lap on the Nordschleife – and that’s what makes it so fascinating.”

If you feel like venturing into the “Green Hell”, you can do so in Forza Motorsport. The game, which won Best Sports/Racing Game at the Game Awards, is available to play in Game Pass since October 10, 2023. Experience the iconic Nordschleife and the combined GP Full Circuit in Career Mode and Rivals Time Attack or create your own track days in Free Play and Private Multiplayer. For more information on Forza Motorsport and future updates, visit Forza.net and Xbox Wire.

Forza Motorsport Premium Edition

Xbox Game Studios

☆☆☆☆☆ 2276

★★★★★

$99.99 $79.99

Get it now

• Forza Motorsport Premium Edition includes the full game, Race Day Car Pack, Car Pass (30 cars delivered to your game weekly, one per week), VIP Membership and Welcome Pack. • Immerse yourself in over 500 real cars across 20 world-famous tracks, including fan favorite locations and multiple track layouts, each featuring fully dynamic time-of-day with weather and unique driving conditions. • Out-build the competition using more than 800 performance upgrades in the all-new, fun and rewarding single-player experience, the Builders Cup Career Mode. • Race alongside your friends in adjudicated multiplayer events with tire and fuel strategy, a race weekend inspired structure and new driver and safety ratings. • Compete with cutting edge AI opponents, advanced physics, powerful assists, new damage and dirt accumulation systems and photorealistic visuals with real-time ray tracing on-track. Race over 500 real-world cars including modern race cars and more than 100 cars new to Forza Motorsport. Make every lap count across 20 living tracks with fan-favorite locations and multiple track layouts to master, each featuring live on-track scoring, fully dynamic time-of-day with weather and unique driving conditions that ensure no two laps ever look or play the same. Experience a cutting-edge simulation with incredible photorealistic visuals that deliver real-time ray tracing on-track, new damage and dirt accumulation systems, and massively upgraded physics featuring powerful assists and a 48x improvement in tire fidelity. Out-build the competition by earning over 800 performance upgrades and race our most advanced AI opponents yet in an all-new, fun and rewarding single-player campaign, the Builders Cup Career Mode. Compete for the podium in Featured Multiplayer* events with a race weekend inspired structure or create the racing you and your friends desire in Free Play. Online racing is safer, more fun and more competitive with AI-powered Forza Race Regulations, tire and fuel strategy, and new driver and safety ratings. Immerse yourself in an expanding world of motorsport. New career championships and online events will be regularly introduced offering unique challenges, incredible new cars and tracks, and exciting new gameplay experiences for years to come. Forza Motorsport Premium Edition includes the full game, Race Day Car Pack, Car Pass, VIP Membership and Welcome Pack. Race Day Car Pack features 8, new-to-Forza cars built exclusively for the racetrack including high-performance machines; Car Pass delivers 30, new-to-Forza cars to your game weekly, one per week, for you to collect, build and race (available as released); Welcome Pack jumpstarts your career with 5 immediate Showroom car unlocks and 500,000 bonus credits that you can use towards purchasing the car of your dreams; and VIP Membership provides a PERMANENT 2x BOOST to BASE CREDITS, 5 Forza Edition cars reserved for VIP Members, VIP Driver Gear with 5 colorways to choose from, the VIP Player Card, VIP Crown Flair, VIP-exclusive events and more. *Online console multiplayer requires Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Core, sold separately

When I first heard about Balatro (out now on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One), I wondered how you could make a roguelike deckbuilder – a genre already stacked with greats like Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inscryption, Hand of Fate, and more – using only poker as an inspiration. After accidentally playing 15 hours of Balatro in only a few short days, I’ve come to realize that this isn’t about playing poker, it’s about breaking poker – and it’s incredible.

Balatro has a simple premise – every poker hand is assigned a points score, and a multiplier for that score. You’re dealt a hand, offered the chance to discard up to five cards at a time, and then try to find the best possible way to hit the highest points total. There are no opponents, per se, just higher and higher points totals you’re tasked with beating (although there are “boss levels” that introduce extra, often painful, mechanics to work around). It’s a simple, elegant set-up. But the ways you can go beyond that set up are anything but simple.

Between each round, you can purchase new cards and abilities from an in-game shop, using money earned by playing each round efficiently, or stylishly. The key to understanding Balatro is to realise that everything you can add to your deck isn’t a way to cheat as such, but a means of literally changing how poker works. The most obvious of these tools comes in the form of Jokers, cards that live separately from your deck, and offer 150 different ways to change how your other cards react – from buffing certain suits, to earning you more money to spend, to truly wild abilities I won’t spoil.

But beyond Jokers there are ways to add extra abilities to your deck as a whole, enhance the potency of certain hand types, add extra cards to your line-up, remove or change suits, and much, much more. It’s overwhelming at first, but as you begin to understand how many variables there are, and how they interact, you start to realise that the game of poker, in Balatro‘s hands, is a mutable, mercurial thing.

I’ve built decks where a simple pair is more powerful than a straight flush. I’ve built decks that mean straights no longer work the way they should, and allow me to create wild combos more frequently. I’ve built decks where I’ve experimented and discovered that there are valid poker hands here that don’t even exist in the real-life game – five of a kind, anyone?

I’ve discovered a new way to play Balatro on every single run I’ve played, quite literally –and I’ve played a lot. This isn’t a game about working within the rules to succeed, it’s about changing the rules to help you redefine what success is. I’ve already hit point scores I didn’t necessarily think were possible when I started playing – and, looking in the unlocks menu, I’ve realised that there are point scores that still feel baffling this far into my time with the game.

Speaking of unlocks, this is where Balatro offers you a meaningful sense of progression. Every new run is a total reset – you can’t keep abilities or receive passive upgrades, but hitting (often very specific) targets will unlock new cards for you to use in future runs. I’m now looking through menus between each run, working out what bizarre goal I want to hit next – a run where I somehow have 30 club cards in my deck? Let’s give it a try.

Perhaps my biggest reservation going into Balatro is that there was no story to anchor this all to – I’ve loved roguelike deckbuilders’ many approaches to slowly but surely offering up a narrative through what amount to simple games of cards. But I’ve come to realise that part of the beauty here is that this game swaps story for atmosphere.

There’s a digital spookiness at work, from the faux-CRT scanlines across the screen, to its heavy reliance on tarot imagery, to the general sense that something is broken about all of this – like we’re playing a virtual poker machine in some haunted casino. I’ll never truly know what’s going on beyond my newest deck’s abilities, and that feels like the point.

Balatro already feels like a game to file alongside the pinnacles of the genre, and I know I’ve only seen a portion of what it has to offer. I can’t wait to see where the cards take me next.

Balatro is out now on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.

Balatro

Playstack Ltd

☆☆☆☆☆ 23

★★★★★

$14.99

Get it now

Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deck builder all about creating powerful synergies and winning big. The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos. Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.

Ever wanted to experience the rush of breaking news? In Times & Galaxy, you’ll chase down scoops as the newest robo-intern of a trusted holopaper. Your assignments might initially seem less than glamorous, like intersolar cat shows and underground dirt fairs—you are an intern, after all. But what, and how, you report is up to you: by picking your way through branching conversations and exploring each level, you’ll discover hidden information, new sources and surprising quotes, allowing you to craft your story your way through the game’s unique Build-A-Story feature.

“Branching conversations are the bread and butter of a lot of larger Western RPGs, and they are, in many ways, what you do as a reporter doing an interview,” Copychaser Games Creative Director Ben Gelinas explains. “You have to decide what to ask, and how to ask it to get the information you need.”

Gelinas knows that from experience: before he began writing for games—with credits on Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, and Control, among other titles—Gelinas was working as a crime reporter for a daily newspaper in Canada. Drawing on his past career offered new opportunities for well-established conversation systems.

“In Times & Galaxy, we’ve turned information into a collectible,” he adds, “which excited me from a narrative standpoint. It’s always so tricky to combine narrative elements with gameplay.”

The Build-A-Story feature breaks each story down into five parts: headline, lede, nut graf (a summarizing, ‘in a nutshell’ paragraph), key quote, and color context. Your options for each will expand as you pull quotes from conversations and scour levels for context and clues. Depending on how you frame what you’ve discovered, your story can turn out sensational, informational, or “alien” interest—each with lasting consequences for your paper’s reputation and readership.

Gelinas notes that it’s not so much about finding the “right” answer as it is deciding how best to present what you find.

“I didn’t want to do a binary,” he says. “I didn’t want to do ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Having three extremes makes things more complicated. And these are all pulled from types of journalism that people do in the real world.”

In his reporter days, Gelinas noticed how different newspapers, covering the same story, would produce very different takes on the same thing.

“We were all reporters doing our jobs,” Gelinas notes. “But the result was different depending on who was reporting and the overarching goals of the newspaper.”

So when it came time to gamify journalism in Times & Galaxy, Gelinas built his narrative team mostly out of former and current journalists, with histories in alt-weeklies and student journalism, to lend their lived experience with the craft—and to help shape the 100-plus memorable characters that populate the game, both on and off the news ship.

“For whatever reason, journalism attracted, and still continues to attract, some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet,” Gelinas says. “I wanted Times & Galaxy to reflect that: I wanted to fill it with very memorable weirdos… ​​And then you get to join them and decide what kind of weirdo you are.”

Times & Galaxy will come to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2024.