All The Big News Out Of Xbox’s X019 Event

Xbox’s annual trade show kicked off in London, offering gamers a glimpse of what Microsoft has planned for the future of games.

It was a big day, ending with seven new games revealed, Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass significantly bulked out, and more trailers than the set of Avengers: Endgame.

Here are all the big announcements of X019.

Three New Games From Xbox Game Studios

Tell Me Why

Xbox revealed three new upcoming games. First up, Life Is Strange developers DONTNOD Entertainment unveiled Tell Me Why, a new Rashomon-like episodic narrative adventure. The game follows identical twins Tyler and Alyson Ronan as they reminisce about their difficult childhood in a small Alaskan town. However, the pair’s recollections don’t quite match up.

“Over the course of the story, players will explore the identical twins’ different memories of key events and choose which memory to believe,” said Game Director Florent Guillaume in a press release. “Ultimately, the choices players make determine the strength of the twins’ bond — and the future course of their lives.”

I am 100 percent ready to get emotionally attached to these kids and inadvertently ruin their lives.

Microsoft claims Tyler is the first playable transgender hero from a major games studio and publisher (though there have been playable transgender heroes before). The character also has the approval of GLAAD, who worked with the developers to create him.

“Tyler is a fully-realized, endearing character, whose story is not reduced to simplistic trans tropes,” said GLADD’s Director of Transgender Representation Nick Adams. “Creating a playable lead trans character — and taking such care to get it right — raises the bar for future LGBTQ inclusion in gaming.”

All three episodes of Tell Me Why will arrive on Xbox One and PC in Winter 2020, and will be included in Xbox Game Pass.

Grounded

Xbox also revealed Grounded, the next title from The Outer Worlds’ Obsidian Entertainment, and it sounds a lot like The Borrowers: The Game.

Reduced to the size of an ant, players must survive a suburban backyard, gathering and crafting items to build themselves a base. There will also be a narrative element and quests, which players can embark on solo or with up to three other players.

It sounds like an interesting new setting for a first-person survival game. Though Merge Games also shrinks players in the upcoming SMALLAND, that game is set in a wilder, less domestic environment than Grounded.

Grounded’s suburban setting could potentially let it play with the same delightful craftiness as The Borrowers. The best part of that film was seeing the innovative ways its tiny people appropriated household items, such as using a tape measure as an elevator or a sewing pin as a weapon.

Even so, my 10-minute demo of the game involved more dandelions and aphids than sewing pins. Though I did find a giant juice box and baseball, I couldn’t find a way to interact with them much less use them to my advantage. I still had good fun (you can absolutely kill your friends, by the way), but I hope the full game will let me use a button as a toboggan.

Grounded will arrive on Xbox One and PC in Autumn 2020, and be available on Xbox Game Preview and Xbox Game Pass.

Everwild

Finally, Sea of Thieves developer Rare gave us a first look at their new game Everwild. It’s still in very early stages so not much is known about it yet, but we do know that it will involve magic. The trailer also looks beautiful, which is a definite plus.

Four New Games Not From Xbox Game Studios

West of Dead

A procedurally generated twin-stick shooter, West of Dead is a Western set in Purgatory, featuring a man with a very Ghost Rider-like flaming skull for a head. It also features some mighty fine Mike Mignola-esque art, which is just as well since Hellboy’s Ron Perlman voices the protagonist.

KartRider: Drift

This free-to-play racer will bring the KartRider series to the West for the first time, after it’s enjoyed several years of popularity in Asia. KartRider: Drift will have a few different modes, including of course one that will scatter items and power-ups all over the road.

Last Stop

Set in London, Last Stop is a narrative-heavy supernatural adventure that intertwines three stories. It doesn’t look too spooky  — the supernatural activity seems more along the lines of body swaps and giant pigeons than anything sinister. Then again, there are some missing girls and a potential stabbing.

Drake Hollow

I spend a few minutes playing Drake Hollow at X019, and found it delightfully charming. It’s a strange sort of farming game, where you gather up little sentient vegetables and build them a nice home. I was told there will be a narrative element as well. I love homesteading games and love a good story, so this looks right up my alley.

Project xCloud Adds 50 Games Aussies Can’t Play

Xbox has added 50 new games to its Project xCloud preview, significantly bulking up the cloud streaming service’s offering with games such as Overcooked!, Hitman and ARK: Survival Evolved. Unfortunately, this is absolutely useless to Australians, as Project xCloud isn’t available here yet.

Project xCloud previews are underway in the US, UK and Korea, and it was announced they’d be coming to Canada, India, Japan and Western Europe next year. But it’s still howling winds and tumbleweed for Australian gamers.

All Project xCloud team members Kareem Choudhry and Catherine Gluckstein would tell us about the rollout at X019 is that they “will have more news as we go into 2020”. Whether this news will include an Australian xCloud preview is anyone’s guess.

Also unanswered are questions of how Project xCloud will interact with Xbox Game Pass, as well as how much data it will use. Choudhry did state that xCloud’s data use is roughly the equivalent of streaming a video, and they’re aiming to keep it below 10Gb/s, but declined to give any details.

Only Android devices are currently supported by Project xCloud, however Xbox also announced that the project will be expanding to PC next year. It will also grow beyond the Xbox One wireless controller, working with other wireless controllers such as rival Sony’s DUALSHOCK 4. This means people who opted for a PlayStation over an Xbox won’t even have to buy a new controller to enjoy Project xCloud.

That is, provided they also live in the US, UK and Korea, Canada, India, Japan or Western Europe for now.

Xbox Game Pass Adds 50 Games Aussies Can Probably Play

Project xCloud isn’t to be confused with Xbox Game Pass, which is also like a Netflix for games but in a different way. While Project xCloud allows you to stream games directly to your device rather than having to download them, Xbox Game Pass gives you access to a catalogue of games for a subscription fee.

Said catalogue just got much, much bigger, with games such as Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, The Talos Principle and RAGE 2 being made available on Xbox Game Pass. Many more will be arriving in 2020, including the Final Fantasy franchise (bar XIV, which they’re still working on bringing over). Overall, about 50 games are being added to Game Pass, a service that is happily available in Australia.

Less happily, Xbox couldn’t definitively tell me whether all 50 games will also be available in Australia. Still, it’s likely we’ll be getting most of the games, if not all. Plus, the promotion for three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1 is applicable Down Under too!

Updates for Minecraft Earth, Sea of Thieves and Halo

There’s at least one thing that we know will definitely be available to Australians: The Minecraft Earth Mob Pop-Up. Microsoft is holding pop-up events to promote Minecraft Earth over the next three weekends in New York, London and Sydney.

Running from 10AM to 7PM local time, the pop-up will feature life-sized Minecraft statues and an exclusive new Minecraft Earth adventure, accessible by scanning a QR code. The Sydney event will be set up in Campbell’s Cove, so swing by that way if you want to see a blocky llama dressed like a reindeer in AR.

Moving from earth to sea, Rare announced its monthly Sea of Thieves update will arrive on November 20. The Seabound Soul will include a new Tall Tale quest featuring Captain Pendragon and feared ship the Ashen Dragon. It will also introduce firebombs, which I’m sure Sea of Thieves’ pirates will be very responsible with.

Enemies of the Covenant got some good news as well. Halo: Reach will be added to the Halo: The Master Chief Collection on December 3, coming to Xbox One and PC nine years after it originally launched.

And Trailers Galore

Finally, Xbox released a ton of trailers to show off their catalogue of upcoming games.

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Junkee travelled to London as a guest of Xbox.