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Xbox @E3: Halo, Elden Ring and Xbox Scarlett
Varun HK
DHNS
Last Updated IST

With the tune of Xbox boss Phil Spencer saying that there are billions of gamers around the world, the Xbox E3 briefing unveiled several games on Sunday at E3 2019.

True to Spencer's promise, Xbox revealed over 60 games at its briefing in Los Angeles, including a dungeon-crawler Minecraft and FromSoftware's Elden Ring among a number of new titles and a new Xbox console.

In the hardware side, Xbox finally announced the new Xbox console, codenamed Scarlett which was rumoured for days, powered by AMD's Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU - promising four times more performance over the existing Xbox One X, and featuring real-time ray tracing. The company even announced a release timeframe: Holiday 2020, and it will come with the next Halo entry.

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Among the new reveals in the third-party games were a video game adaptation of the found-footage horror series Blair Witch, but the biggest draw was CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077, which had a surprise announcement: Keanu Reeves as a character. The game is set in a dytsopian futuristic world obsessed with body modification and releases on April 16, 2020.

The trend of announcing remakes did not stop with THQ Nordic as Xbox also announced a new BattleToads and Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

Not to leave gamers who love a personal story aside, Xbox also unveiled a trailer for Spiritfarer, which, according to the trailer involves building a housing community on a boat, exploring the world, fighting threats to your home and "learning to say goodbye". This is looking to be one of those games that tug at your heartstrings.

A new Flight Simulator was also announced, with a breath-taking trailer and powered by satellite data and Azure AI.

Speaking about the Xbox Game Pass, the company re-announced the service for PC, confirming that the Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be available through it. Sarah Bond of Xbox confirmed that the Game Pass will feature over 100 PC games including Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Flexing more and more for Xbox, head of Xbox games studios announced several new teams joining the company, including Double Fine Productions which debuted a trailer for Psychonauts 2.

Star Wars had its day in the sun, too, with a trailer for Jedi: Fallen Order and a new LEGO game condensing the entire Skywalker saga.

Gears 5 expectedly had a new trailer too, with the release date finally being confirmed to be September 10, 2019. The Coalition announced a new tech test for July featuring a new multiplayer mode and the return of the Horde mode at Gamescom in August. The Coalition also confirmed a three-player co-operative mode. In addition, an iOS and Android spin-off was also announced, featuring characters that look like Funko Pops.

Survival Horror affocionados were not left in the lurch with a trailer for Dying Light 2, the sequel to Techland's 2013 game Dying Light, featuring a main character who is infected and launching Spring 2020.

Racing games fell in line with a LEGO expansion for Forza Horizon 4, called LEGO Speed Champions.

Bandai Namco took the stage with Tales of Arise, a new fantasy game releasing in 2020. Gearbox and 2K's Borderlands 3, which releases September 13, got a new trailer as well.

The rumoured game by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin, Elden Ring, was also officially announced with a new trailer with a visual style consistent with past FromSoftware offerings and no release date.

Phil Spencer announced a new cloud gaming platform, xCloud, promising gamers the power to game anywhere.

The announcement everyone was waiting for came near the close, with a new trailer for Halo Infinite, featuring an Earth that lost the war and a Master Chief who's battered but still got fight left in him. It's a Project Scarlett launch game to boot.

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(Published 10 June 2019, 03:14 IST)