Yes, E3 isn’t happening this year, but it isn’t stopping everyone from having events. Sony had a State of Play focusing on PlayStation VR 2 titles and the Summer Games Fest brought in a lot of indie game announcements but Xbox is sticking with its old E3 schedule which meant I stayed up again watching it live at 3am Australian time. I’m a glutton for punishment… And new Xbox games!

The full presentation can be viewed below and after watching it a few things came to mind during the 90 minute runtime:

• Redfall still gives me Left4Dead vibes ame that doesn’t stop me from being excited for it. If there is more to the game than that I will be very happy.
• Having Hollow Knight: Silksong on Game Pass day one is a big get. A big win for Aussie devs Team Cherry too as the game got massive exposure being the second game shown, right after Redfall.
• I shouldn’t be as excited about flying one of Halo‘s Pelican drop ships in Microsoft Flight Simulator but damn it I cheered and it was the first thing I tried to download (it’s free) the moment the show ended.
• I really hope the new Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 5 will leverage the game’s track editing tools. It’s a match made in heaven and should be the main driver for revisiting this themed expansion a second time (was in Forza Horizon 3 previously).
• The new Forza Motorsport undoubtedly looks great and seeing what the new Maple Valley ractrack looks like shows some promise with changing weather, time of day and a few flourishes to add the Forza Horizon festival atmosphere into the mix.
• Having a full suite of Riot Games titles including League of Legends and Valorant is a long discussed but massive win for Game Pass (PC only, alas). And then also seeing that Persona 5 Royal, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable are finally coming to Xbox made it even better.
• The more extreme PlayStation fans had been losing their minds over Hideo Kojima and his studio working with Xbox and they were likely not happy seeing it confirmed here. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it but cloud integration will be a big part of it. Seeing as what Microsoft Flight Simulator is capable of I think there is a lot to be both curious and excited about.
• The delay to Starfield, like Redfall, was a huge hit to expectations but the extended preview of what to expect from the game might have salvaged a lot by giving players a real indication of what to expect and why the wait may be worth it. Lots to do, lots to visit (hundreds of planets) and lots of choices to make. Plenty here will remind players of other games in the genre with callouts to No Man’s Sky, Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen and Mass Effect as well as their own Fallout too and it seems very cohesive in how it fits together. The ship building aspect is something new for RPG and space sims and I’m thinking people are going to love making their own Millennium Falcons and take to the stars with them.

A lot more was covered including Diablo IV, a new Minecraft spinoff, Obsidian’s Pentiment and enough games for Xbox to highlight fifty titles coming to the platform, with a good percentage on Game Pass at launch. It’s an impressive way to say “we have games”. There’s more to come in an extended showcase which is a little over a day away so odds are good there will be further surprises in store.