Xbox Games Showcase 2024: all the news, trailers, and ...

It’s a mad world once again. At its Xbox Games Showcase at Summer Game Fest, Microsoft revealed the latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series: Gears of War E-Day. It’s being developed by The Coalition, Xbox’s internal studio dedicated to all things Gears. The game doesn’t currently have a release date, but it being built on Unreal Engine 5.

The announcement trailer harkens back to the classic “Mad World” commercial for the original Gears. Fittingly, E-Day is set 14 years before the first Gears, and “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” It once again stars Marcus Fenix and is being billed as an origin story.

Microsoft is making the white version of the Xbox Series X official today. The new console option won’t include a disc drive, and will be entirely all-digital. Inside it’s identical to the Xbox Series X, with the same performance for existing Xbox games. This new white model will be available with 1TB of storage later this year, priced at $449.99.

Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed the new white Xbox Series X during the Xbox Games Showcase today, alongside a 2TB “Galaxy Black” version of the original Xbox Series X. There’s also a $349.99 1TB Xbox Series S coming in white, too.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is arriving on Xbox and PC on November 12th. The next installment in the legendary franchise will include hot air balloon trips, aerial firefighting, and much more.

During the Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 developer Asobo showed off commercial flight, air ambulances, and even aerial advertising. Asobo has been working on adding a variety of new planes to the game, and you’ll even be able to fly as part of a search and rescue team, or help with agricultural aviation and aerial firefighting. Asobo has also been working on additions like air racing, skydive aviation, and even VIP chartered services.

Microsoft is officially putting a release window on Fable, which is now set to arrive at some point in 2025. After an initial trailer at last year’s Xbox summer showcase, today, we got to see some early gameplay.

The new footage was mostly focused on the characters and story of the fantasy game. Fable will be centered on a hero named Humphry, who “will be forced out of retirement when a mysterious figure from his past threatens Albion’s very existence.” It appears that choice will once again play a big part in the experience, though not a lot of hard details have been revealed about the game just yet.

It’s been four years since we first found out that a new Perfect Dark game was on the way, and now Microsoft has revealed the first gameplay during the Xbox Games Showcase today.

The new Perfect Dark is a reboot of the original game, being developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics. In the gameplay trailer we got a first look at Joanna Dark in a near-future Cairo setting. “Team Perfect Dark has pulled inspiration from elements of the first two games, but crafted an entirely new story and universe around them for this reboot,” says Xbox wire editor in chief Joe Skrebels.

The Fallout games have seen a big boost in popularity since the live-action TV series, and Fallout 76 is primed to take advantage of that with its next major expansion. It’s called Skyline Valley, and for the first time, it will actually expand the game’s map, introducing a new Shenandoah region in the south. Bethesda says that players will “investigate the cause of an electrical storm circling overhead and unveil the mystery around Vault 63 where they will meet its dwellers and discover a shocking new Ghoul type – The Lost.”

You can get a feel for the expansion in the trailer above, though it won’t be long before you can play it, as Skyline Valley launches on June 12th. The trailer also teased a much-requested feature coming to the game in early 2025: you’ll finally be able to play as a ghoul, though maybe not one quite as cool as The Ghoul.

Bethesda’s sci-fi universe is about to get bigger. Bethesda has finally unveiled Shattered Space, the first major expansion for Starfield, which comes nearly a year after the open-world RPG debuted. Based on the first trailer, it has a much darker tone than the main Starfield campaign. No release date was revealed, but it’s coming sometime in 2024.

Here’s the official premise:

The rumors were true: the next Doom is heading to a dark fantasy realm. At Xbox’s big June showcase event, id Software officially unveiled the next entry in the demonic shooter series, which is called Doom: The Dark Ages. As the name implies, it takes the franchise back to a medieval-like era, with the slayer killing enemies in a more fantasy realm. In that way, it seems to serve as a prequel of sorts. It still looks as gruesome and gory as ever, though. Also, you can fly on some kind of cyberpunk dragon.

The game is launching in 2025, and will be coming to Xbox (including Game Pass), PC, and PS5.

Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will debut on October 25th. The next installment in the popular franchise will be set in the early ’90s, and it will launch day one on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Black Ops 6 will include a new campaign, a multiplayer mode with 16 new maps at launch, and a new zombies experience.

The main campaign is set after Black Ops Cold War and even includes flashbacks to Black Ops 2. It’s all set in the early 1990s during the end of the Cold War. Raven Software has developed the campaign, which includes immersive spy missions amid government conspiracies. The game will be set across Southern Europe, the Russian Tundra, the US, and the Middle Eastern desert.

Microsoft is back with another Xbox Games Showcase this year, and this time around, there’s a Call of Duty direct straight after the main show. This is Microsoft’s first Xbox Games Showcase to feature games from across Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda, and Xbox Game Studios, as well as third-party titles.

I think this is going to be a big Xbox showcase, with a runtime that could approach the two-hour mark. Get ready for new game reveals, lots of release dates, and some potential surprises.

Microsoft is officially holding its big Xbox summer showcase on June 9th, as The Verge reported earlier this month. The showcase will air on Sunday, June 9th, at 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6PM UK and will include a deep dive into the next installment of Call of Duty after the main show ends.

Microsoft is only teasing the Call of Duty Direct as “the next installment of a beloved franchise,” but sources familiar with the company’s plans tell me that this is indeed Call of Duty.