If the last couple of years of the Xbox Series X/S generation have made anything clear, it’s that Microsoft has struggled to make good on the promise of the healthy start that its current-gen console duo enjoyed. Though the first couple of years of the generation saw Xbox seeing solid sales, as first-party supported faltered a couple of years down the line, so, too, did the entire Xbox apparatus, and though 2023 was relatively better for the platform on that front (though not without caveats, from the disaster that was Redfall to the mixed reception for Starfield), thus far in 2024, Microsoft has once again failed to deliver on its promises.
The only major first-party Xbox title to have been released this year so far is Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, and though that wasn’t a terrible game by any means, it sort of feels like it just passed everyone by without making any impact. Beyond its forgettable release, we’ve seen Ara: History Until and the early access version of Towerborne both coming to PC, but other than that (and a couple of expansions here and there), it’s been slim pickings- unless you’re talking about Xbox Game Studios releases on PlayStation, funnily enough, because Microsoft’s actually been much more active on that front this year.
Of course, as is ever the case in such conversations, it’s worth pointing out that though first-party support has been sparse for Xbox this year, third-party releases have, at the very least, done their part in giving audiences games worth checking out. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, Unicorn Overlord, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and Tekken 8 have all launched for Xbox Series X/S this year, as have stellar indie games like Balatro, Animal Well, UFO 50, 1000xRESIST, and Neva, to name just a few. So even though Xbox has missed out on some major hits these last few months even on this front – Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Black Myth: Wukong, and Silent Hill 2 come to mind – there has nonetheless been no shortage of games to play on Xbox.
Turning our attention back to exclusives, however, though 2024 has seen the flow of releases slowing to a trickle once again, it does look like Xbox is primed to end the year strong. We’ve got less than two months left in 2024 now, but in third-party exclusive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and first-party duo Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Xbox has three upcoming releases in the pipeline that all not only rank among the biggest and most prominent titles of the years, but all also look genuinely promising in their own way.
Before we get down to the first-party stuff, let’s talk about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 first, which is looking like a particularly fascinating game, not just because of its own inherent promise and potential based on everything that we’ve seen of it, but also because of all of the context surrounding it. Fans of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise have been waiting for its second numbered entry in some way, shape, or form since as far back as 2020, though even in this current form, the wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been long, with the game having been originally announced in 2018 with what was a highly optimistic 2021 release window, before being formally unveiled in 2020.
The last four years have seen the open world survival horror shooter being hit with numerous delays, but a lot of that has been down to highly unfortunately circumstances, in particular with developer GSC Game World – based in Ukraine – having to deal with Russia’s invasion of their nation. Even amidst the frankly insane circumstances surrounding its development, however, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has looked immensely promising. Just like the original trilogy, it’s looking like it’s going to be completely uncompromising in its vision, as it delivers a massive open world experience that blends the first-person shooter with elements borrowed liberally from survival, survival horror, and immersive sims.
Is it going to be for everyone? Probably not. In fact, decidedly not. That’s just what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is, however, and even though it does look like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is going to be a much more polished and much less janky experience than its predecessors, it doesn’t look like GSC Game World has made any compromises with series’ knack of refusing to hold players’ hands and emphasizing immersion and player agency above all else. That singular vision, however, is likely going to endear the shooter to a great many people- assuming the game makes good on all of its promises, that is.
Later this month – just one day before the launch of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, in fact – we’re also going to see the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. In 2020, its predecessor delivered one of the year’s most impressive games, so we fully expect the next one to knock it out of the park as well. Flight Sim 2024 is promising to build on the foundations of its predecessor in all the right ways – by adding a Career mode and more ways for players to engage with the game, by improving further upon the impressive tech to make the experience even more detailed and immersive, and by relying more on cloud streaming to remove the previous game’s barrier to entry with ridiculously long install times – so we wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest to see the game enjoying widespread praise in a few days’ time, unless things go spectacularly wrong somehow.
Finally, in December, we also get Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is obviously another huge release. If or when MachineGames will return to the Wolfenstein series is anyone’s guess, but even te studio’s Indy game has kept us waiting for quite some time now, so anticipation leading into its imminent release is certainly. There is, of course, also the fact that the game is carrying a huge, established IP name, even though the last time we got a legitimately, unequivocally good Indiana Jones movie, the SNES did not even exist yet.
It helps, of course, that The Great Circle has consistently looked great in all that we’ve seen of it until now, and we have seen quite a bit. Not only does the game seem to be capturing the vibe and tone of a classic Indiana Jones adventure perfectly, it’s also looking like quite an interesting gameplay experience, from its focus on first-person melee combat and adventure game-style puzzles to its promise of immersive sim-style gameplay that will encourage players to think outside of the box, rather than simply running and gunning, which is what you’d ordinarily expect from the makers of Wolfenstein.
There isn’t much of the year left, but there’s no question that these final weeks are heavily stacked for Xbox, with a handful of notable multiplatform games being joined by major exclusive megatons, some of which people have been waiting for for years and years and years. Whether the aforementioned trio will be able to deliver on expectations remains to be seen, but at least in the here and now, it’s looking like Xbox is going to end the year strong, even if most of 2024 has been rather spotty for the platform.
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