Xbox Games Showcase 2024 Predictions!
The XboxEra Staff weigh in on just what to expect from Microsoft
It’s that time of year again – time for some Xbox Games Showcase 2024 Predictions! Xbox’s annual summer showcase is here, and based on rumor, reporting, and informed speculation, the show is shaping up to be one of their best yet. The showcase is happening at an interesting point in the company’s history.
While we expect a ton of first party games, Game Pass deals, and great looking third party partners, questions surrounding the future of Xbox’s strategy will have some people feeling a little tense going into the event.
Xbox have the opportunity to finally answer some long lingering questions in June; updates on multiple first party games, questions about how they will integrate ABK into the wider company, and what the future of the brand looks like in the near and long term.
If you’re an Xbox fan who has been clamoring for games for years, this showcase will likely be the best yet in terms of Xbox delivering on its promise to bring great games to the platform.
As always, remember that these predictions are just that, predictions. Now just like last year, we’ve grouped the games into several sections. Games we know, which are all but guaranteed to be there, games we expect, which are titles we think should be there, games we hope, which are games we’d love to see on Sunday but aren’t exactly expecting, and finally games that surprise us, which is the “hail mary” category of some truly wild guesses.
With all of the preamble out of the way, let’s dive into the XboxEra predictions for Xbox’s 2024 Summer Showcase.
Games We Know
Call of Duty Black Ops 6
Call of Duty will have a heavy focus at this year’s Xbox showcase as it is getting its own “Direct”, meaning we will be seeing an in-depth look at the game directly following the main event. This year’s Call of Duty is special: not only is it the return of the beloved “Black Ops” series of COD games, it’s the first full Call of Duty game in years that will have Xbox marketing and it’ll launch directly into Game Pass.
Treyarch are the developers behind this game and they are definitely fan favorites, meaning this year’s Call of Duty, more so than usual, will have plenty eyes on it.
Starfield: Shattered Space
Starfield released late last year to mostly positive acclaim and has slowly and steadily been receiving updates in the months since launch. The game currently has both 60 and 40 fps modes on Xbox Series X, as well as detailed city maps and numerous bug fixes, making it even better than it was at launch.
Now, it’s time to see Starfield’s big post launch DLC, Shattered Space. Not much is known about the update other than it may deal with a popular faction featured in Starfield and will bring new quests and story missions to an already massive game.
Shattered Space will be a point in the games life where many players will be eager to jump back in, and with numerous quality of life improvements already added to the game since the games launch in September, this release will be a great opportunity for Starfield to be back in the zeitgeist again.
Avowed
After spending most of the generation releasing small indie-passion projects like Pentiment and Grounded, Avowed is Obsidian’s chance to finally release a “big” RPG, the type of game they are traditionally known for making. While Avowed will be smaller in scope than some of the games it will be compared to, it’ll still be filled with plenty of quests and areas to explore.
We hope to see more of the game’s quests and story, as well as hopefully getting a confirmation of a release date. Avowed will be one of Xbox’s biggest games of the year, so here’s hoping we come away impressed after it undoubtedly shows up on June 9th.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones is that big adventure game that many Xbox fans have been clamoring for… with a twist. It’s not a third person, over the shoulder action game, rather a more immersive, first person game where developer Machine Games wants you to see the world from Indy’s point of view.
Indiana Jones doesn’t have quite the same name recognition nowadays as some of the bigger licensed IP you see in some other games, but it still does have a huge fanbase that have been waiting years for a great game adaptation. Xbox could finally have their Uncharted competitor, but not in a way anyone could have predicted.
Towerborne
Towerborne is ‘The Banner Saga’ developer Stoic’s first ever action adventure title along with being a new IP. Shown at their last summer event(and rumoured to be a thing for quite a while), Towerborne is expected to launch this year, offering four-player cooperative play across PC and Xbox consoles.
Austin Wintory’s melodies will make a return in this more upbeat post-apocalyptic world of monsters and freaks. You can expect that to show up this year—and if you can’t wait, there’s always the Insider Programme available for you to give the game a shot.
Games We Expect
Gears 6
We expect Gears 6 to be shown at the showcase due to strong reporting that it will be there, and everything that has been hinted suggests a major technical leap for the franchise. The Coalition, the devs who are now stewarding this long standing franchise, are technical wizards and should be utilizing Unreal Engine 5 to its fullest.
The last mainline entry in the series released nearly 5 years ago and is still an eye catching visual spectacle on Unreal Engine 4. We don’t know how much of Gears 6 to reasonably expect considering the game is likely still at least one year away, but what we do expect is to be is blown away by whatever we see.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred
Diablo 4 was added to game pass just a few weeks ago alongside what seems to be a great season and plenty of much needed end-game updates/tweaks. We also know the name of the first major expansion, Vessel of Hatred, and that it’s meant to release “late 2024”.
Considering Blizzard is now owned by Microsoft, we think it’s pretty much a given that we’ll see a trailer or reveal for this addition at the show, especially as Blizzcon is taking a hiatus this year.
Doom
After taking the boomer shooter formula to perhaps never seen before heights, Doom Eternal left us with a bombastic finale in its DLCs, where the difficulty and mechanical complexity of its Hellish shooting reached their apex.
Strong rumors suggested that id Software might have stopped working on the Doom IP for a while in favour of Quake, which may still be a thing, but it looks like a prequel to Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal is coming.
Doom is a big deal, and this game will be the first new release under the Xbox banner and if rumors are to be believed, will launch day one as a multiplatform title. For a number of reasons, many eyes will be on this game when it’s announced.
Fable
We finally got our first real look at Playground Game’s take on Fable last year when we saw a little over a minute of “in game” footage that left us feeling extremely bullish on how the final product will turn out.
Playground seemed to understand the tone that made the original series so unique, and the visuals on display were so impressive that many questioned if what we saw was actually representative of what we would be playing.
We expect Fable to finally release sometime late next year after years of development, so another look at the game in the upcoming showcase wouldn’t be a surprise.
While it’s possible Xbox opts to hold off on showing more until the year the game releases, we think there’s a better chance that Playground is eager to share more of the world they’ve created as soon as possible.
Perfect Dark
It’s been almost four years now since the Perfect Dark reboot was revealed at 2020’s TGA. Since that time we’ve been getting some conflicting reports and rumours about its state. Some said the game wasn’t shaping up well, others said the exact opposite.
Of course, both can be true as game development is a rollercoaster at the best of times. But now we think it’s finally time to see more from this game, possibly even a release year for 2025. As this is the very first title from Xbox’s built from the ground up studio, The Initiative, there are quite a few eyes on this one.
State of Decay 3
The State of Decay series has been quietly popular and successful for Xbox. The first game in the series released as a “Summer of Arcade” game for the Xbox 360 and was a cult classic janky zombie survival game. State of Decay 2 was a step up in many ways for developer Undead Labs but was criticized for a lack of polish and a clear lack of budget.
State of Decay 3 was announced all the way back in 2020 and we have heard next to nothing about the game since, but this year feels like the year we finally hear more. Friend of the site Jez Corden has been hinting online that we should be seeing more at the upcoming showcase and that the game is coming along nicely.
The game is utilizing Unreal Engine 5 and we expect the game to be a significant visual upgrade from the charming but clearly lower budgeted State of Decay 2.
The zombie survival market has been oversaturated at this point, but fervor for failed games like The Day Before shows that there still is a ravenous crowd that will flock to well executed zombie games. Undead Labs and Xbox have a golden opportunity here to make a game that will appeal to a wide audience, hopefully we finally see what the game looks like on June 9th.
Blue Dragon
Blue Dragon is the second Xbox 360 exclusive that developers Mistwalker and Artoon made in conjunction with Microsoft Game Studios. Coming out not too long after Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon is a much more light-hearted adventure, sporting the late Toriyama Akira’s distinctive artstyle and this masterpiece of a boss fight theme, it’s a rare combination of everything awesome that was never quite replicated since its release.
With rumours abound that it might come back, potentially as a remaster, it could save the game from Xbox 360 purgatory (even if the game is backwards compatible on current Xbox hardware).
Sakaguchi is likely out of the picture in terms of game development these days, but it would be nice if Cry On was saved from the shelves of Canceled Game Gaol.
Activision Games Coming To Game Pass
Microsoft bought ATVI for a whopping 70 billion, and with some of the company’s games beginning to pop up into the Xbox PC app (Crash, Spyro) it’s all but inevitable that we get a giant reel of games coming to Game Pass. Here’s hoping Activision’s huge 360 catalogue makes it in some form. And Kings Quest.
Atlus
At this point, Atlus is no stranger to Xbox shows, with the earlier Persona games appearing in 2022 and Metaphor RePhantasy having a big debut last year. The latter game releasing in October this year, so we think it wouldn’t be surprising to see another trailer for it at the show. That’s what we expect, but this bleeds us nicely into our next category, as we certainly hope to see another title from this publisher…
Games We Hope To See
Atlus (Again)
Still on Atlus for now, we hope to see Persona 6 make it’s big reveal at the Xbox showcase this Sunday. Atlus has spent a couple years now building up an audience for Persona games on the platform, and their latest release, Persona 3 ReLoaded seemed to do quite well at continuing that build up.
Persona 6 has been rumoured for years now, with some saying the game is “essentially complete” and ready for a 2025 release. If so, what better way to show Xbox’s commitment to the franchise and genre then by having this reveal on their event?
More Xbox First Party
So we could break this category up into specific games if we liked, but the truth of it is that Xbox simply has too much in development!
Games like South of Midnight, Clockwork Revolution, Contraband and more have already been revealed and while we think this year will focus on a few other select titles from their first party studios, namely Fable, SoD3, and Perfect Dark, that doesn’t mean we can’t hope for more, does it?
South of Midnight and Clockwork Revolution specifically looked absolutely fantastic for entirely different reasons. South of Midnight’s art style and “in-engine” footage was fascinating, teasing a fantasy world in America’s deep south, while Clockwork Revolution is the latest by the RPG masters at inXile, and this time as a first person shooter!
Contraband has been MIA for years now and it’s a game we are not entirely sure when we will see again. Rumors of troubled development has long plagued this title and we are currently unsure where the game is at in its development.
Xbox has plenty of other games that could reasonably show up again as well. Project Mara from Ninja Theory was announced years ago, but considering Hellblade 2 just launched, it feels unlikely. The Outer Worlds 2 from Obsidian could easily show up, but they’ll probably want to focus on Avowed.
Other games like OD and Blade are probably years away, and there’s also a plethora of games that haven’t yet been announced we could see. To sum this section up, Xbox has a LOT they could show, and it’s not a bad problem to have.
Final Fantasy XVI
Final Fantasy at an Xbox show? Surely this must be in the last category of this article! Square has had a shakeup lately and have a new focus on a “multi-platform strategy.” With Final Fantasy 14 finally on Xbox, surely now the doors have slowly opened for more from the much beloved franchise.
FF16 released last year exclusively to PS consoles and has yet to even release for PC, so we hope Square could use this opportunity to announce both a PC and Xbox port for this titanically scaled game.
Everwild
I know, I know, the “More Xbox First Party” category was up there, but considering how long it’s been since this game was shown and how little we know of it, we thought it deserved it’s own slot on this list.
It’s now been nearly 5 years since Everwild was revealed and 4 years since we last saw its unique and soothing art style. Surely it’s time for us to see it again, right? Well, we certainly hope so.
Hardware
The biggest question mark about the future of Xbox is no longer about which games will be coming to the platform, it is now about how the console fits into Xbox’s overall plans.
While Xbox executives have continued to commit to new hardware and have even teased early next generation plans, we believe the June showcase would be a perfect time to double down on their commitment to console users and ease some lingering concerns following recent business strategy changes.
There have been rumors of Xbox exploring a handheld for some time now, and Xbox executives have already begun hinting at what the next generation of Xbox hardware will focus on.
We hope that Xbox will begin to explain their vision for how hardware fits in their evolving ecosystem at this upcoming showcase, that could mean anything from a tease of whats to come to full on hardware reveals.
Halo Project by Certain Affinity
It feels like we’ve been putting this game on these lists for years now, but hey what’s one more try right? We know Certain Affinity has been developing something Halo related for many years at this point.
Rumours about it have shifted all the time, but the gist of it was that it’s multiplayer centric, possibly a battle royale like game, and also possibly being developed in Unreal Engine. Other then that, we don’t know much.
Will we finally see it this year? To be honest, we doubt it, but hey that’s what hope is for, right?
Games That Would Surprise Us
More Bethesda Game Studios
Bethesda Game Studios will be here to share more about Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC, but they could also bring a few more surprises with them to the showcase. The Fallout IP has never been hotter due to the Amazon TV shows immense popularity.
There’s always the chance BGS decides to strike while the irons are hot and shows up with a Fallout 5 logo, or even, for the hardcore a flashy “Fallout: New Vegas 2” title card. There’s also the rumored Fallout 3 Remake/Remaster that might be ready to show.
Then there is The Elder Scrolls. Will there be any news about The Elder Scrolls VI? It feels a little too early, but maybe a quick comment or first look at some concept art could satiate fans who have been waiting years for news on the game.
Then there is the other rumored BGS remake, Oblivion. There have been multiple credible rumors about the games existence and this could be the year to finally confirm the games existence. All of this feels less than likely, but we also wouldn’t be surprised if any of these things happened.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
We’re going to keep putting this damn game on these lists every year until we finally get it on Xbox. That’s it, thank you.
Third Party Stores on Xbox
The drum has been beating on this one for quite a bit, especially as Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer went on record saying that he’d like to have third party stores on Xbox consoles.
Highly doubt you’ll see such a thing happen this year, maybe even the next—but it’s not entirely off the table. Phil himself placed it right there.
Blizzard
While we fully expect to see the Diablo 4 expansion at the show, Blizzard makes quite a bit more than one franchise. However, a lot of what it makes is pretty PC oriented. Which is why even though there’s a major World of Warcraft expansion releasing this year, The War Within, we’re not expecting to see anything about it at the show.
Which is exactly why it appearing there would surprise us! There have been rumours and whispers of a WoW console port for ages now, now that the developers are under Microsoft, is it finally time to bring those plans forward? Maybe?
While we’re on Blizzard, we also wanted to touch on another announcement that would absolutely stagger us if it happened, Starcraft 3! The Age games continue to do well and now Worlds Edge and Blizzard have deep ties to eachother.
We know that they considered the Starcraft IP as an important part of the acquisition (alongisde all of Blizzard’s IPs), so it seems like a no brainer that they’d have some kind of Starcraft game in development. Does that mean it’s far along enough (assuming it exists) to show this Sunday? Almost certainly not, but that’s exactly what this category is for!
Helldivers 2
Hey, we said this was the Hail Mary category, right? So let’s throw one. Helldivers 2 was a massive success for Sony and Arrowhead Game Studios, reaching 12 million copies sold.
But in recent weeks/months, the game has been seeing a steady and steep decline in active players, partially due to some controversy with Sony’s forced linking of accounts and partially because that’s just how GAAS titles go a few months after release.
On the other side of the console sea, Xbox centric folks were lamenting how they didn’t have access to the game and how a Halo title with similar gameplay would have been perfect.
Okay, so a game with a declining playerbase and another playerbase that’s pinning for that exact game. Seems like a perfect match, right?
Well sure, on paper, but we don’t actually expect to see Helldivers 2 on an Xbox showfloor. I mean to the point where the chance of it happening is next to zero. Buuut, next to zero isn’t actually zero…
Conclusion
Aaaand, that’s it! We certainly won’t get everything right here, but that’s the fun part of prediction videos. And with Xbox having so many internal developers, we could have spent 10 minutes talking solely about them if we wanted to.
While E3 itself may be dead, Xbox continues to carry on its spirit with these events and we’re all grateful for it. Do you agree with our Xbox Games Showcase 2024 Predictions? Disagree? Did we miss a game that should have been in one of the four categories? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
