lost pages

Microsoft trying to shore up some goodwill.

I know it has been a couple of weeks since the last Xbox Developer Direct and I was trying to think about how best to approach all of this.

On one hand, I am very much interested on the next slate of what Xbox has in store for 2026, if not only for the GAMES but all the developers involved. In a market of economic anxiety and people getting laid off in the video games industry as a whole. I could not help but feel worried that if these upcoming video games do not perform, then there will be further cuts to studios and creative talent.

It is a brutal business and despite how often these shows lean heavily on PR and being very corporate feeling and sanitised.

I do believe that Xbox and Microsoft as a whole need those ‘small wins’. I do like seeing the passion and enthusiasm of developers talking about their games, despite the whole veil of Microsoft looming in the distance.

I am very much interested in Beast of Reincarnation made by Pokémon Developers Game Freak. I am very intrigued by the whole concept and the contrast being nature and technology in this new action RPG. It remains to be seen how all the gameplay elements work together, but I am happy to see Game Freak work on other projects besides Pokémon. It is definitely on my Wishlist and I suspect Game Freak really wanted to do something else besides Pokémon and I wish them all the best.

Now arguably the big game everyone had their eyes on, was the rebooted Fable series developed by Playground Games most commonly known as the developers behind the Forza Horizon series. Now I do not know much about Fable, but I am just glad to see how the developers are trying to expand the series and add their own flavour. Not to say, there are aspects you may see from previous Fable games such as witty British humour and being able to romance the NPCs and start businesses.

Now the early gameplay of Fable looked rather choppy and not the smoothest frame rate, but you hope with enough time all those things are ironed out.

There’s many other things I could touch upon regarding this Developer Direct, but I decided to talk about things that mainly caught my eye.

If 2025 was a rocky road for Microsoft and Xbox.

2026 will be more of a challenging period, but there are some glimmers of hope, despite all the doom and gloom as of late.