Summer Games Fest capped off a weekend of games announcements with Microsoft’s Xbox and Bethesda showcase, a 95 minute session that mostly focused on a few large titles, but made plenty of room for smaller and heavily anticipated third-party games as well.
At the top of the show, Xbox revealed the first extensive look at Starfield, Bethesda’s new space RPG, which will feature over 1,000 procedurally generated planets. News about Starfield’s development has been slow since its announcement in 2018, and it was recently pushed back to 2023.
Xbox also revealed more about Diablo 4, the latest in the gory action-RPG series, which will launch in 2023 for Xbox, Playstation and PC, and opened its playable beta yesterday. Given recent controversy over Diablo Immortal’s use of monetization strategies, reception for the trailer has been generally positive in comparison, although Diablo 4 will reportedly have microtransactions as well—-just not the same variety as Immortal.
Redfall, Bethesda’s game about a small town overrun by vampires, also got a new trailer, as did Forza Motorsport, the upcoming entry in the popular racing franchise. Another game to get more gameplay reveals was Overwatch 2, which will launch on October 4 in early access.
The show also debuted trailers for a range of previously announced third-party titles, including A Plague Tale: Requiem, which ended up on Paste’s list of most anticipated games this year. We also got a new look at Silksong, the follow up to 2017’s Hollow Knight. After being announced in 2019 and getting an initial trailer in 2020, the game fell quiet until yesterday, when the developers released a new trailer giving an overview of combat options. Although the release date is still unknown, Silksong will have a day one release on Game Pass.
A left-field reveal was the medieval (technically early modern, probably, but who’s counting) mystery game Pentiment, which will launch in November. Following a 16th-century journeyman and inspired by the style of medieval manuscripts, the game apparently refuses to ever tell you conclusively who the killer is. Described by its developer as more of a narrative adventure than a detective game, this is one of my personal highlights from this packed weekend.