

"We are not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo,” he said, noting that even high-quality games won’t see Xbox surge ahead of the PS5. It’s worth bearing in mind that Spencer doesn't see Xbox competing with PlayStation or Nintendo for console market share. The 'console war' lives, it's just different So that’ll be another expectation for Starfield to meet the pressure builds. With the Redmond company’s tech and resources, one can be forgiven for currently expecting Starfield to be far more polished than similar Bethesda games of the past. That was the case when the game studio was independent of Microsoft. Realistically, Starfield looks like the only game that’ll carry that torch, so it’s important Xbox and Bethesda get it right.īut Bethesda’s previous open-world games have a reputation for being buggy, despite receiving critical acclaim.
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Yet for people to have faith in Xbox, whether that’s realized in Game Pass subscriptions or continued adoption of the Series X and S, the brand needs a big hitter this year. Obviously, not everyone will like Starfield open-world design and RPG elements can’t appeal to everyone after all. If not, the rest of 2023 could be grim for Xbox and that could see a real cooling off in positivity towards The Series X and S, as well as Xbox as a gaming brand. So the overarching workflows that could have influenced the state of Redfall could potentially hang over Starfield.īut putting away speculation at the inner workings of Xbox and Bethesda, what's clear is Starfield really needs to be a well-polished great game. Yet Arkane and Bethesda Game Studios are both part of publisher Bethesda Softworks, which is run somewhat separately from Xbox Game Studios. So we can’t make an apples-to-apples comparison. Now Bethesda Game Studios is different from Arkane, and is making a game that has a lot more in common with its previous big hitters like Skyrim comparatively, Redfall was a bit of a different tack for Arkane. And, just to kind of watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed - I'm disappointed.

I've been a part of it for a long time, I obviously work on Xbox head of the business, I have a lot of friends get a lot of feedback. In fact, the fault from Redfall has been so heavy that Xbox boss Phil Spencer has put himself up for the blame, telling Kinda Funny that "there's nothing that's more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community. I'm quietly hopeful that Redfall will be improved over time, but this messy launch is a bad look for Xbox, especially as Redfall was already delayed.
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Unfortunately, Tom’s Guide didn't get a review code ahead of Redfall’s release, but our colleagues over at PC Gamer and GamesRadar noted Redfall hasn't lived up to expectations and doesn't feel like the finished article for the ambitious game.Īs a fan of Arkane games, this comes as a huge disappointment to me. But even worse, the core game beats at the heart of Redfall appear to be lackluster and a long way from the engagement of Dishonored 2. Red.failĭespite developer Arkane’s excellent reputation for making brilliant games, most recently with Deathloop, Redfall launched with a load of bugs and no promised 60 frames per second mode. Then Redfall was released on May 2… and oh dear. Xbox also has plenty more in the hopper, but I’d say these two titles are seen as the big ones for 2023. Still, 2023 was hyped up as the year of Redfall and Starfield, two hotly anticipated Xbox/PC exclusive games from two major studios with fantastic track records. But neither of these games was a big triple-A title. Sure Pentiment at the tail end of last year was rather special, and the surprise drop of Hi-Fi Rush at the start of this year won kudos for Team Xbox. However after Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 made their debut on Game Pass in 2021, I’d argue there haven’t been any heavy-hitting semi-exclusive games on the service for some 18 months. An affordable monthly subscription that gets you access to more than 100 Xbox games, including new releases, as well as PC games and cloud-streamed games if you pay a little more, was and still is a great offer.Īdd in the promise of more exclusive games, thanks to Microsoft gobbling up developers and behemoth publisher and studio Bethesda, and Xbox Game Pass started to look pretty unassailable as a gaming must-have. Xbox Game Pass, which we’ve dubbed the best deal in gaming, combined with Xbox’s excellent online services, seemed to be the feather in Xbox’s cap.
