Microsoft’s theme this year is “Jump Ahead”. I would have assumed that meant maybe more timed releases and DLC. The intro video cemented home their lineup for this holiday season with Forza 6, Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Fable Legends, and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. I am not sure if anyone saw that last one coming or not. I thought it might be the new Gears that The Coalition is working on. I was wrong...so very wrong.
It started off with Halo 5. An engine built from the ground up for the Xbox One and it looked amazing. We saw some 4 player co-op (no word of split screen) and, besides Nathan Fillion’s dulcet tones, the crazy squeals of the grunts are back. I loved all their little sayings as you were about to obliterate them and it was one of the things I actually missed in Halo 4. The multiplayer will be seamless drop in and drop out and, according to 343, some of the new maps may be up to 4 times the current size.
https://youtu.be/di7y5Oi0Ac8[width=650,height=366]
Also there is a new mode called Warzone. Choose to be on the side of Master Chief or Spartan Locke and battle each other or AI controlled enemies or both from the looks of it.
https://youtu.be/a6QcTY9LbPE[width=650,height=366]
Next was a new action adventure game called Recore from legend Keiji Inafune and the makers of Metroid Prime. There was a lot of emotion and heart in this trailer, but don’t discount the action as that looked fantastic too. Spring 2016 could be a good time to be an Xbox owner.
https://youtu.be/ZtfY27pYri0[width=650,height=366]
The first big surprise was Phil Spencer’s announcement of Backwards Compatibility for over 100 Xbox 360 titles come this holiday season. If you are a preview member you will be able to see that functionality soon. All your 360 saved games, all your downloaded content, and all your disks all playable on the Xbox One.
On top of that, a new controller for the Xbox One and Windows 10. Woohoo, a new controller you say? You need to see what this bad boy can do? Customizable thumbsticks and D-pad, lock-in hair triggers, switchable setups, and under body paddles...basically controller insanity, but in a good way.
The next surprise that came out of left field was from Todd Howard of Bethesda. Yeah we know about Fallout 4, but what we didn’t know is that all the mods created on the PC will be able to be downloaded for free on the Xbox One.
Peter Moore came out for a bit but, honestly, I didn’t find much of anything he said to interesting and I feel the room may have felt that as well. The reception overall of his segment was one of mild acknowledgement.
We saw a Ford GT drop from the ceiling for Forza 6 along with an announcement of 450 cars, 24 person multiplayer, 1080p, 60fps, weather, and night day effects.
Dark Souls III showed a trailer but that was about it.
https://youtu.be/3sMc2bnRc0o[width=650,height=366]
Next up was Ubisoft who showed Tom Clancy's The Division trailer and announced a Beta program exclusive to Xbox One this winter. That was nice but then like a claymore breach here comes Rainbow Six Siege with a bonus pack of Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2 along for the ride! Playable due to that so sweet backwards compatibility!
https://youtu.be/tp3DQDQgq3o[width=650,height=366]
Pushing the ID@Xbox platform seemed a little easier this year with more independant studios signed on and actually making games! Beyond that there is a new mode called “game preview”. You can download and try a game in its early stages for free. If you feel you want to help support the team in finishing you can pre-purchase it at that point, wait until it’s done, or not at all. Microsoft brought out four promising games: Tacoma, Ashen, Beyond Eyes and Cuphead. Beyond Eyes will tug at your heart strings as you play as a blind girl trying to navigate the world while Cuphead is a take on a 16 bit platformer but in the style of 1930’s cartoon. Tacoma and Ashen looked interesting as well.
https://youtu.be/UJszILRT_D4[width=650,height=366]
Rare graced us 2 new games or 1 new game and 30 old ones to be exact. To celebrate 30 years in games, we get a 30 game pack with 10,000 gamerscore filled with games like Crash Bandicoot, Perfect Dark, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and 27 more. All playable on the Xbox One! On top of that they will launch a new shared world adventure game called Sea of Thieves. I don’t know how quite to classify this one other than playing Pirates with friends on land and sea.
https://youtu.be/1z48qvGsA_0[width=650,height=366]
It seemed like things were winding down but then we got smacked upside the head. Hard! Kudo Tsonuda tells us that Gabe Newell and Microsoft seem to have at least shaken hands, as there is a new relationship with Valve VR promising the best experience on Windows 10. That news along side this week's news of the Xbox One controller pack-in with Oculus Rift lead me to believe Hololens is dead. Kudo also announced that you could stream Xbox One games to the Rift. Yup..so long Hololens. We barely knew ye.
Here comes the mind blowing part that you can only see to believe. Hololens is not dead. There is a new Minecraft built specifically for it. There was an elaborate camera set up to see what the Hololens was putting out and everyone seemed impressed as it was shown on the screen. Then they moved to the table and had Minecraft build a world on the table...from scratch...popping out of the table...with the other presenter inside who joined from her surface. The audience lost their shit! The rest of the world will likely do the same at MineCon, July 5th and 6th.
https://youtu.be/ETzQWXuKQZQ[width=650,height=366]
Honestly that mic-dropping moment should have been the end.. Sadly it wasn’t. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (free beta this week) and Gears 4 (Holiday 2016) closed out the show. It wouldn’t have been bad, but the lack of Marcus in the Gears 4 trailer seemed to suck the wind out of the audiences sails.
No matter, after losing out to Sony these last few years it looks like Microsoft is fighting back in big way! That is nothing but good news for all of us gamers!
