The rumors were true, Xbox has announced a brand new Developer_Direct showcase for Thursday, January 18. The list of games that will be showcased includes Ara: History Untold from Oxide Games, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from Ninja Theory, Avowed from Obsidian Entertainment, and more details on the upcoming Indiana Jones game from Machine Games. There will also be a follow-up livestream from Zenimax Online Studios where they will be revealing new content coming to The Elder Scrolls Online in 2024.
In the Xbox Wire post announcing the Direct, Xbox does share a comment about the recently acquired studios of Activision-Blizzard saying “Please note that while this show won’t have updates on games from Activision Blizzard, you can look forward to news from those teams later this year”. This suggests we will likely see more from these studios in June when Xbox holds its annual summer showcase.
Even with an absence of Activision-Blizzard titles, there is still plenty to be excited about for this Developer_Direct. We’ve seen Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II a handful of times now, and after getting a release window of 2024 at The Game Awards last month, maybe we will see a concrete release date announced.
Originally revealed at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, Ara: History Untold is a strategy game from a team of former Civilization developers. We are going to be seeing new gameplay as well as hearing about inspirations for the game. As the title and gameplay suggest, the game spans seemingly entire histories of societal and technological advancement and seems like it’s shaping up to be a pretty beefy strategy game.
Obsidian Entertainment’s Skyrim-like Avowed had a ton of hype coming away from its original reveal but currently finds itself in a bit of a mixed-bag state among fans following its gameplay reveal at last year’s Xbox Games Showcase. Sounds like we will be getting a deeper dive into the gameplay and world design during the Direct which should hopefully assure fans of the direction the final game is moving towards.
Perhaps the most tantalizing announcement however is the official reveal of the Indiana Jones game developed by Wolfenstein developers, Machine Games. Originally announced in 2021, this Indiana Jones game has Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard as executive producer, who actually pitched the idea for this game all the way back in 2009. According to the Xbox Wire post, we are getting at least 10 minutes dedicated to the game discussing setting and story details as well as gameplay. Machine Games has been fairly quiet since the release of the VR game Wolfenstein Cyberpilot in 2019, since then the team has contributed some expansions for the remaster efforts of the first two Quake games. Seeing as the modern Wolfenstein games are primarily first-person shooters, it will be interesting to see what type of game Indiana Jones ends up being. Guerrilla Games had success moving from the first-person perspective of the Killzone series to the third-person perspective for their Horizon games, so perhaps Machine Games will follow a similar path.
During the first Developer_Direct, one of the biggest surprises was the reveal and shadow drop release of Tango Gameworks Hi-Fi Rush which went on to be one of our favorite games of last year here at Respawn Station. There hasn’t been enough Developer_Direct’s to point out any historical patterns, but it will be interesting to see if they have another hidden game or announcement that will be revealed once the showcase begins. I’ve personally seen some speculation online that Double Fine Productions might be ready to share a project, but it really could be anything.
Which game are you looking forward to seeing the most? If you want to watch the Developer_Direct as it airs, it will be streamed online Thursday, January 18 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK.
