Call of Duty Black Ops 6, Starfield Shattered Space, surprises… What to expect from the Xbox conference?

Game news Call of Duty Black Ops 6, Starfield Shattered Space, surprises… What to expect from the Xbox conference?

From the shadow to the light

We’re not used to having so little information about the content of the Xbox Games Showcase. Generally, the American brand takes advantage of its last week of preparation before the big evening to communicate the duration of the event and to confirm the presence of a few titles. Last year for example, we knew that Starfield and Forza Motorsport would be there. For its event on Sunday June 9, 2024, the only thing that is confirmed is that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be presented in detail. Nothing else was revealed.

In his official press releaseMicrosoft simply points out that this is its first Showcase in the company of the Bethesda-Activision Blizzard duo, the publisher of World of Warcraft having been bought by the green ogre in October 2023. We will therefore discover productions from Xbox studios, Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, but also third-party partners.

Games, just games

Everything else is just speculation and rumor at the time of writing. Last year, the Redmond firm showed us videos of InXile’s projects with Clockwork Revolution and Compulsion Games with South of Midnight. We were also able to discover a trailer “in game” from Fable designed by Playground. But there are still some terribly silent studios we’d like to hear from, like The Coalition and id Software. That’s good, persistent rumors assure that we will discover the new Gears of War and Doom during the Xbox Games Showcase. Other previously announced software is likely to be included with Indiana Jones, Ara: History Untold, Avowed, Towerborne, Replaced or even Flight Simulator 2024, since they are all planned for this year. Will we also have the right to see what Double Fine is secretly cooking? Tick ​​tock, tick tock…

Of all the games that Microsoft has announced that we are desperately waiting for information about, there is of course State of Decay 3, Contraband, Perfect Dark and Everwild. We don’t think we’ll see The Outer World 2 again, with Obsidian working on Avowed. As for OD, the Xbox exclusive from Hideo Kojima, or Blade from Arkane Lyon, it is perhaps a little too early to see them in action again. Will we learn more about the famous “Project Dragon” from IO Interactive? Are we going to see Final Fantasy projects from Square Enix? Is a new Banjo-Kazooie really going to be announced? We’ll have to wait until Sunday to get all the answers. What is almost certain, even if nothing has been made official, is that we should discover the first Starfield expansion (Shattered Space) in action.

Game Pass Mania!

Without taking any risks, we can already write that the winner of the Xbox Games Showcase will once again be Game Pass, as has been the case since E3 2019. The service offering a vast catalog of games will, of course, be talked about. It remains to be seen whether the Redmond firm will attempt to reproduce the 2020 Showcase experience on a larger scale, with all of the games that were presented during this event having been announced as part of the service. In 2021, 27 of the 30 titles presented were included in Game Pass. In 2022 and 2023, a few rare games shown were not part of the service, like Diablo IV and Star Wars Outlaw. With Bethesda and Activision in support, the group could afford to strike a big blow to sell its Game Pass, especially at a time when the company led by Satya Nadella is betting big in order to boost its number of subscribers.

See Xbox Game Pass on Microsoft

The last little madness of the group to achieve its ends was to formalize the arrival of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 in “day 1” in Game Pass without increasing the price of the subscription even though few analysts considered this possible. Could the American giant take advantage of the Call of Duty Direct to launch old software from the license in Game Pass? Unless the brand with the big “X” does not favor a shadow drop of an unannounced title, like what was done with Hi-Fi Rush during the Developer_Direct in January 2023.

Hardware surprises

Microsoft conferences usually focus 100% on gaming. However, contrary to his usual, Aaron Greenberg, the vice president of marketing for Xbox games, did not promise that there would only be “play and nothing but play”. Will Phil Spencer’s teams take advantage of this opportunity to highlight new hardware products?

Three possibilities lie before us. The first is that the Redmond firm is unveiling a new Elite controller with haptic feedback. The second is that a new Xbox Series “refreshed” is shown. You should know that these two pieces of hardware had been mentioned in leaked internal Microsoft documents. The third is much more exciting. According to the hallway noises, Microsoft would take advantage of its Showcase to reveal… a portable Xbox console. This could be interesting.

The Xbox Games Showcase will open its virtual doors on Sunday, June 9 at 7 p.m.. It will be followed by Call of Duty Direct. You will be able to follow the show live on the channels Twitch And Youtube of the brand, with French subtitles.

As with most other conferences this summer, the JV teams are mobilized to allow you to follow all the announcements. In the program ? News that covers major announcements, conference summaries, hot video feedback, a live feed and a whole bunch of other content. Our teams in Los Angeles will also share their impressions of the games they will have the chance to test.