Following a killer State of Play and a dud of a Summer Game Fest, Xbox spun the game reveal wheel with its own live stream. The Xbox Games Showcase broadcasted today and it gave us a very clear picture of what the rest of the console’s 2025 will look like, as well as its 2026. That was sorely needed, because we knew about a lot of games coming to Xbox but we didn’t have many release dates for them. That changed a bit today, though we didn’t see the games we expected.
The Outer Worlds 2 and Ninja Gaiden 4 got big release date reveals, and we learned a whole lot more about Clockwork Revolution. What we didn’t see, though, was Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, or Perfect Dark. Those were some surprising omissions, but we still got plenty of surprises anyways. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Persona 4 is getting a remake, and Obsidian is launching a third game this year with Grounded 2. That was just the tip of the iceberg in what was a so-so showing for Xbox. Here’s out rundown of every announcement.
The Outer Worlds 2 is getting its own full showcase after the Xbox event, but it still kicked off the show here. We got a new trailer for Obsidian’s latest RPG, which showed off its signature anticapitalist satire. We saw plenty of combat too, with lots and lots of shooting. The sequel even has its own version of Doom’s BFG. It will launch on October 29.
The leaks were real: Xbox is entering the handheld market … kind of. We aren’t getting a portable Series X, but Microsoft is partnering with Asus to create a version of its ROG Ally that’s built for Xbox, dubbed the Xbox Ally. There’s an ROG Ally X edition of it coming too. It will run Windows and integrate with Xbox Game Pass. More surprising here is the fact that we got new footage of Hollow Knight: Silksong and Xbox reaffirmed that it is coming this year.
After its reveal earlier this year, we got a much closer look at PlatinumGames’ Ninja Gaiden 4. As you can expect, we got a very brutal trailer filled with blood and ninjas. We finally got an official release date too. Ninja Gaiden 4 launches on October 21 on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
The Bioshock-like Clockwork Revolution got an enormous trailer during the show, which taught us way more about the game. We saw more of its over-the-top characters, shooting and RPG choice systems. We didn’t get a release date for it though, which likely means it’s not coming in 2025.
If you thought Obsidian already had its hands full this year with Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, you’ll be surprised to hear it has a third game coming. Grounded 2 is, against all odds or logic coming to Game Preview on July 29. We got a big trailer for the survival game, which showed off some familiar Honey I Shrunk the Kids action.
Coming off the success of its Silent Hill 2 remake, Bloober Team revealed more about its next game, Cronos: The New Dawn. The gameplay-focused trailer showed off a dark and bloody third-person shooter that looks like a mix between Dead Space and Silent Hill. The big twist here is the shooter’s merging system. Monsters have the ability to combine with others, so players need to burn any corpses to avoid creating more powerful aliens. While it didn’t get an official release date, it’s now slated to launch later this fall for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
It was one of the worst kept secrets in gaming this summer and now it’s here. Persona 4 Revival is a remake of the RPG classic that follows in the footsteps of last year’s Persona 3 Reload. We hardly saw anything about it and didn’t get a release date, but hey, at least we know that it exists.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a new game from Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine, but we finally got a look at what it’s working on — and it’s very surprising. Keeper is an adventure game where you control a walking lighthouse that has a bird sitting on top of it. It’s coming out on October 17.
For its grand finale, Xbox revealed Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. While we didn’t really learn too much about it, we did get a very cinematic trailer that teased its story. It’s set in 2035 and stars David Mason. That’s about all we got. No release date was shared, so it’s not really clear if that’s this year’s Call of Duty or not. It was a bit of a strange teaser.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.