the main announcements to remember in the releases of upcoming video games

The Xbox Showcase, the major annual conference of Microsoft’s video games division, left a strange aftertaste on Sunday June 9. For almost two hours, the company’s main figures took turns on stage to play trailers and try to generate excitement for the releases of the coming months.

Not a word, however, on the announcement made a few weeks earlier of the closure of four studios under the leadership of Bethesda-Zenimax (and therefore of Microsoft, their owner). News that caused a strong reaction, in an industry strongly shaken by waves of layoffs which no longer seem to be stopping. We had to wait for an interview by the specialized media IGN with the boss of Microsoft’s video games division, Phil Spencer, for a few words to be said on what he modestly described as ” difficult decision “.

The host of the Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighley, for his part, opened the ball of the summer conference season of the video game industry by discussing, on Friday, a year “tumultuous” for professionals in the sector. Adding that the ” large companies “ had to “treat their developers properly”. A few meager references to the gloomy economic context therefore, eclipsed by the avalanche of trailers that have filled the 2024 and 2025 release calendar, and here are the essentials.

“Civilization VII”

It could be rightly suggested that the revelation of a new Civilization does not take us by surprise, given that the episodes have been coming out against all odds for over thirty years now. But the seventh opus of this strategy game developed by Firaxis remains the biggest announcement of this Summer Games Fest, as it occupies a central place in the genre. In 2025, it will therefore be possible to conquer the world again and replay the history of humanity. For details of the new game mechanics, you will have to wait until August.

“Doom: The Dark Ages”

Metal music at full blast and hordes of demons: Microsoft has lifted the veil on the next episode of Doom, planned for 2025. The id Software studio swaps the usual satanist science fiction universe of the august shooting game license for that of dark fantasy. Dragons, castles, maces and shields give a medieval touch to the combat in this game full of crazy weapons, which has always focused on clashes fought at a hundred miles an hour.

“Wanderstop”

Evil tongues will say that there are too many farm simulations and that the video game industry must stop this madness. Readers of taste will, on the contrary, rejoice at the arrival of Wanderstop, published by Annapurna Interactive. This is the new project from Davey Wreden, creator of The Stanley Parable And The Beginner’s GuideWho wanted to try to a game “about routine and rituals” and promises a very different approach to the popular genre of cozy games. To be discovered in 2024.

“Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33”

In 2021, the French studio Sandfall Interactive, located in Montpellier, presented Project WRoleplay ” ambitious “ in preparation for. Sunday evening, the veil was lifted on Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 (its definitive title), one of the nicest surprises of this conference weekend. Not only his universe fantasy looks visually very successful, but it will also be a role-playing game with turn-based combat, something the world still sorely needs. Scheduled for release on Xbox in 2025.

“Mixtape”

An initiatory story in American landscapes, a musical selection for those over 30 and skateboarding: the Beethoven & Dinosaur studio has done everything to set the tone in the trailer for Mixtape. This game about teenage girls on their way to their last night of high school seems above all to promise a touching narrative experience, even if we are waiting to see a little more about the interactive sequences of the game. The developers have made themselves widely known by criticism with The Artful Escape, released in 2022 and praised for its artistic direction. Announced for 2025.

“Cairn”

A little over six months after the release of Ebbing, from the Paris region of Don’t Nod, mountaineering is in the spotlight in another French production, this time signed by Montpellier’s The Game Bakers. This project with dizzying environments should be released in 2025. The scenes showing its heroine trembling facing the wall suggest that surpassing oneself will be the main point of the adventure. With the talented comic strip author Mathieu Bablet (Carbon and Silicon) to the storyline and artistic direction, this video game is one of the greatest promises of French video games.

“Perfect Dark”

After having revolutionized console shooting games by featuring James Bond in Goldeneye 007 in 1997, the Rare studio launched its own secret agent game, Perfect Dark. Microsoft is trying to put back in the spotlight what had been one of the best titles in the Nintendo 64 catalog. Mixing shooting, infiltration, melee combat and parkour, the gameplay sequences of this reboot show a supercharged heroine. James Bond had better watch out.

“Fable”

Fable is back, with its characters with British accents and its jokey fantasy world. The trailer, which features a heavily alcoholic knight, undoubtedly bears the mark of the Englishman Peter Molyneux, troublemaker of role-playing games at the origin of his universe. The reboot, which should land on PC and Xbox in 2025, recalls its fundamentals: all choices have consequences. Do good or evil… It’s up to you to decide. And the turning points of your adventure will be affected.

” Never will “

Released in January 2020, Gray left us a little hungry. Visually sublime, Nomada Studio’s title benefited from slick staging, but this was undermined by a fairly standard and somewhat repetitive platform game. The developers revealed this weekend images of Never willtheir next game planned for 2024. Let’s hope that the mechanics will be more convincing this time.

“Dragon Age: The Veilguard”

A tavern serves as a meeting point for a team of characters with complementary profiles (the investigator, the necromancer or the dragon hunter). The presentation makes no mystery: here we are in an old-fashioned role-playing game. The publisher Electronic Arts and the studio BioWare propel us once again to the lands of Thedas, well known to fans of Dragon Age. The fourth episode may have been announced in 2018, but we had little news about the project. He returns under the name of The Veilgard and with a release set for this year, exactly ten years later Dragon Age Inquisition.

And also…

• The Innersloth studio, at the origin of the phenomenon Among Usintends to share the fruits of its success and launches Outersloth, a fund to help independent developers.
• The production company Blumhouse, famous for its horror films, is launching into horror video games and announces a first batch of titles, including the next title from Sam Barlow.
• Surprise ! Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 should be a first person shooter with lots of action and explosions.
• Sometimes in life you just want to become a monk and start a beer brewery in a monastery. Ale Abbey is here for that.
• Electronic Arts promises that the new Skate – which was announced in 2020 – is still in development.
• We didn’t think we needed a new game inspired by Blade Runner. By focusing on a cerebral investigation, the Polish Nobody Wants to Die wants to convince us otherwise.
• Fights and yakuzas are on the agenda Tenjutsunext game of “frenchie” Sébastien Bénard (Dead Cells).
• The creators of very zen Dorfromantik teamed up with the highly recommended YouTube channel Kurzgesagt to create Star Birdsspace puzzle game with birds.