It’s that time of year and while the ghosts of E3 are still haunting June, it isn’t stopping a number of publishers and platform holders from using this time of the year to spruik their latest titles.

After Sony’s recent “success” at advertising Xbox games, it’s now time to see if Microsoft and Bethesda can avoid a similar own goal and deliver something that gets fans excited for the future. Apart from a thirty minute Starfield presentation after the main show, we don’t know much else about what is to come but everyone is making their predictions and it’s time for a few of my own…

• Xbox will lean on some old franchises with remakes and reboots. There are enough games in the catalogue now to make it possible and this seems as good a time as any to bolster the release lineup. Xbox has usually leaned on backward compatibility to keep old games relevant however now might be the time give a few a fresh coat of paint.
• Following on from the above, we’ve got to be seeing some more collections. A Gears of War 1-3 collection has been rumoured for some time but there’s other franchises like Fable that could do with one too. Seeing as a new Fable is also coming, the timing would be good as a few recent hints suggest it might be there.
• We will finally know what the vast majority of their studios are doing. We’re already expecting to see Forza Motorsport from Turn 10 and potentially Avowed from Obsidian, but inXile and Compulsion have been very quiet on their projects and maybe it is time to find out. Others such as Doublefine could have a trick or two up their sleeves waiting to surprise us.
• Starfield may be less “Skyrim in space” and more “Mass Effect but huge”. There’s a lot to suggest a big story in play and a number of different gameplay systems that combine to make it more than the sum of its parts. Seeing extended gameplay will hopefully confirm the path chosen.
• There’ll be some Activision news… maybe nothing major as the deal hasn’t closed yet but with no Call of Duty announcement at the PlayStation event it’s going to have to happen somewhere.
• More Vampire Survivors news – if they keep bringing out DLC I will keep buying it. I love this game! If the developer is working on a new game I think Xbox will try to lock it in as an exclusive.
• This is reaching but Hi-Fi Rush will get some major DLC or even a sequel hinted at. It might be crazily early to make an announcement, but the game is brilliant and I can’t see Xbox not wanting to give Tango Gameworks everything they need to keep up the momentum.

This year I won’t be at home staying up late to watch the show live on YouTube – I’ll instead be at the Xbox FanFest event in Melbourne. It’ll be a long night but it’s not something I get to do every day so really looking forward to it. Hopefully there’ll be a few surprises to talk about later. 🙂