Jay Peters
The president of ZeniMax Online Studios is leaving.
Matt Firor is departing “later this month” after more than 18 years of heading up the organization, he says.
Xbox
Microsoft’s Xbox has been around since 2001, and over that time the gaming brand has given us huge hits like Halo, Gears of War, Forza, and more. Today, the Xbox brand covers consoles like the Xbox One, PC gaming, and has even expanded to other platforms. You can play Minecraft on everything from a computer to an iPhone to a Nintendo Switch. Along the way, Microsoft has pioneered modern services like Xbox Live and Game Pass, introducing new ways to play games. And with Project Scarlett on the horizon, the Xbox looks to have a bright future.
Tom Warren
Microsoft’s Xbox cuts have hit key areas.
News of Microsoft’s major layoffs today keep rolling in, as the company informs around 9,000 employees of the cuts. I’ve heard from sources that the Xbox user research team has been hit hard, with nearly half the team affected. It’s a key team that focuses on ensuring quality across Xbox games, the platform, and developer tools. Even a product lead for Xbox Family and child safety has been laid off.
Jay Peters and Tom Warren
Tom Warren and Jay Peters
Tom Warren and Jay Peters
Andrew Webster
Everwild has reportedly been cancelled.
According to a report from VGC, Rare will be “restructuring” as part of the latest round of layoffs at Microsoft today, and that means development on its mysterious adventure game Everwild — which was announced way back in 2019 — has ended.
Sources: Everwild has been cancelled as Xbox layoffs hit Rare | VGC
[videogameschronicle.com]
It sure looks like the next Xbox is going to be different, as Microsoft competes more with Steam.
Tom Warren
Ash Parrish
Senua’s Saga, now enhanced.
The developers at Ninja Theory have been hard at work adding new features to Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II and now they’re ready to show it to even more players than before. Seanua’s Saga: Hellblade II Enhanced launches on Xbox, and, as a part of Xbox’s new multiplatform strategy, it’s coming to PS5 too on August 12th.
The enhanced edition will include a performance mode with 60 FPS (not available on the Series S unfortunately.) A new gameplay mode called Dark Rot, an improved photo mode, and developer commentary.
The Quest 3S Xbox Edition is a custom colorway VR headset bundled with an Xbox controller.
Tom Warren
Emma Roth
AMD’s partnership with Xbox will extend beyond consoles.
“Moving forward, AMD will go beyond building custom chips for Xbox consoles to designing a full roadmap of gaming-optimized chips, combining the power of Ryzen and Radeon for consoles, handhelds, PCs and the cloud.” AMD CEO Lisa Su says in a video posted on Thursday.
Su adds that AMD is “doing it all with backward compatibility,” allowing gamers to access titles “across platforms.” Xbox announced this week that its next-gen console will feature an AMD chip.
Andrew Webster
Great, more crafting games.
Just kidding. Microsoft is continuing to beef up its Game Pass offerings by adding Blizzard titles, this time with the remasters of the first three Warcraft games, which are available on June 26th for subscribers on PC.
David Pierce
David Pierce
The Switch 2 is bigger than the original, but how does it compare to a GameCube?
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Andrew Webster
Jay Peters
Roblox is coming to the new ROG Xbox Ally.
“We will be playable natively and optimized for gaming handhelds on day one,” according to a post from Roblox CEO David Baszucki.
The announcement made me wonder: will the game come to Switch? “We are always looking for new ways to expand Roblox to both our creators and users,” Roblox spokesperson Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt tells me. “We don’t have any details to share about the Switch at this time.”
Jay Peters
The Outer Worlds 2 will start at $79.99.
You can see the cost on the game’s Steam page. Microsoft had already said it would be raising the price of new first-party Xbox games to the $79.99 price, and here we are.
Tom Warren
Did Microsoft just tease a Halo CE remaster?
Xbox chief Phil Spencer just casually revealed Gears of War: E-Day is coming in 2026, 25 years after the launch of the original Xbox. It’s arriving alongside a “the next Forza,” according to Spencer, and “the return of a classic that’s been with us since the beginning.” That classic sure sounds like the Halo CE remaster I wrote about last year.
Andrew Webster
Blops is back.
The big final reveal for the Xbox portion of the event was the next Call of Duty, which will be Black Ops 7. According to Activision, the new game will be set in 2035 and follows a story “where David Mason leads the Black Ops team against a manipulative enemy who weaponizes fear above all else.”
Tom Warren
Ash Parrish
You merely adopted Mad World, I was born in it.
Gears of War: Reloaded will put the original Gears series in more hands than ever before. We already knew the game was coming to PS5 for the first time, along with cross-play and cross progression. We also knew the release date, August 26th. I guess Xbox didn’t really want anything, just to remind us it’s still here and coming soon.
Richard Lawler
Older Windows handhelds are getting Xbox full-screen upgrades too.
If you already bought a Windows gaming handheld, you might not need to upgrade your hardware to get the overhauled Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows OS that Microsoft and Asus just announced.
Xbox exec Roanne Sones:
The Xbox full-screen experience will first come to the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X, and our next focus will be updating the in-market ROG Ally and the ROG Ally X. Similar full-screen Xbox experiences will be rolling out to other Windows handhelds, starting next year.”
Jay Peters
A new game from the creators of Spiritfarer.
The game, At Fate’s End, is “an action-adventure game where you fight the ones you love,” according to the game’s reveal trailer. It looks like a game perfectly designed for me, so I’m already looking forward to its release sometime in 2026.
Ash Parrish
Cronos is coming.
Bloober Team is having a great time. Silent Hill 2 released to rave reviews and the developer has another project in the works with Konami. The team also has an original project, Cronos: The New Dawn.
We got a new trailer for the game featuring a tone of gross, be-tentacled monsters and some timey wimey shenanigans. Still now firm release date, though, beyond fall 2025.
Jay Peters
Cowabunga.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 launches on July 11th, and Activision debuted a new trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase that showed off TMNT’s Michelangelo as a playable character.
Andrew Webster
We’ve got Pokémon at home.
With Palworld already a hit on Xbox, it’s no surprise other similar games are on the way. Next up is Aniimo, described as a “creature-catching open-world ARPG.” There don’t appear to be any guns, but the graphics sure look slick. It launches next year on the Xbox, PC, and mobile.
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