Microsoft

Obsidian’s Next Game Is A Survival Adventure Where You’re The Size Of An Ant [Update]

Today, as part of Microsoft’s XO19 conference in London, Outer Worlds developer Obsidian announced its first project under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella: a survival adventure game called Grounded Grounded, which is releasing in early access on Xbox One and PC in spring 2020 (digitally and as part of Xbox Game Pass), is an up-to-four-player…

Age Of Empires II‘s Remaster Kicks Ass

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is a lot. It adds new campaigns, civilizations, revamped enemy AI, and 4K graphics, in case you’ve been waiting to see a flood of medieval warriors clash incomprehensibly with one another in crisp detail. Remastered and slightly reworked, one of the defining real-time strategy games of the turn of…

Microsoft Rolls Out Customizable Text Filters For Xbox Messages

Rolling out starting today to Insider preview members and coming soon to Xbox One owners everywhere, Microsoft’s new Xbox text filters give users the ability to tailor the level of offensive content they’re exposed to through private messages and, eventually, in profiles, clubs, and their activity feed. Don’t worry, “none” is an option. Detailed in…

Everything Announced During Today’s Inside Xbox

Following Sony’s “State of Play” livestream earlier today, Microsoft jumped in with an Inside Xbox presentation featuring new content and services coming to its platform. More games are coming to Xbox Game Pass. On Xbox One, Jump Force, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and Lego Worlds are being added. On PC, Cities: Skylines, Saints Row…

Video Game Companies Vow Action On Climate Change, But Critics Say They Need To Do More

Within a couple generations, after climate change has more visibly ravaged the Earth, the easiest way for humanity to interact with lush forests and icy glaciers might be video games. It’s a bleak, maybe science-fiction potential future, but not an improbable one; according to some analyses, we have just 12 years to suppress catastrophic climate…

Smash Bros. Creator Just Made “Xbox” Trend On Twitter In Japan

During a special Nintendo Direct for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Masahiro Sakurai introduced the Banjo-Kazooie DLC. Not only does he want you to get that, but he would also like you to play the original game on Xbox. The original Banjo-Kazooie games were released on Nintendo hardware, but as Sakurai explained, Microsoft now owns the…

Little Kid’s Hand-Written Xbox Fan Mail From 2002 Is Very Wholesome

Seamus Blackley, one of the key people involved in the creation of the original Xbox console, was going through some old stuff the other day when he came across an adorable piece of fan mail written 17 years ago by little Mitchell Riley. Realizing he’d never replied, Blackley decided to track him down and make…

Everything Microsoft Showed On Today’s Inside Xbox

Microsoft showed off Gears of War 5‘s horde mode, NBA 2k20‘s career mode, and the new games coming to Game Pass during its latest episode of Inside Xbox The episode spanned over an hour and a half, and while it was mostly full of new trailers for games we already knew about, there were a…

Long-Promised Minecraft Graphical Overhaul Is Canceled

Today, Mojang announced that it has ceased development on Minecraft’s Super Duper Graphics Pack, citing technical difficulties. It’s been just over two years since the feature was announced on stage at E3 2017, “Some of you might remember us announcing the Super Duper Graphics Pack during E3 2017,” the studio announced on its website today.…

Kinect may be dead as a video gaming peripheral, but its technological uses live on. The latest example is in Sydney, where it’s being used to help control the speed and frequency of train boardings

Two Years Later, Minecraft Still Doesn’t Have Its Xbox One X Graphics Enhancements

The Super Duper Graphics Pack for Minecraft was announced at E3 2017. Just over two years later, it’s still never been released, and there has been little news about the update’s progress. Back in 2017, the team sounded optimistic. “Today we’re revealing a new look for Minecraft that we’re super duper excited for you to…

I Wish Nintendo And Sony Made Elite Controllers

Out of every single video game purchase I’ve ever made in my life, across games, consoles and accessories, I don’t think I’ve made a more sensible purchase than Microsoft’s Xbox Elite controller. First released in 2015, it was—and remains, even with a successor on the way!—expensive as hell. As Phil Spencer said at the time,…

The Video Game Industry Can’t Go On Like This

At about this time next year, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what the next generation of video games will look like. New consoles will likely be shown off, bold new streaming initiatives will begin to launch, and we’ll see all the wonderful kinds of games they will bring us. All these new things…

July’s Game Pass games have been announced with Shadow of Mordor: Shadow of War arriving on July 4 alongside My Time at Portia and Undertale, while Blazing Chrome will be a release day addition on July 11. Unfortunately, Warhammer Vermintide 2 and some other big games are also leaving this month.

Halo Reach’s PC Test “Illegally Distributed”, Players Facing Bans

Around 1000 Halo fans have been given the chance to test a single level from the upcoming PC version of Halo: Reach. A lot more than 1000 people want to play it, though, and so as I type this it’s being shared online. Aware of the leak, in a forum post made on Saturday, 343…

In its latest ID@Xbox showcase Microsoft announced a bunch of indie games that will soon be coming to Game Pass including Bad North, Gonner, The Banner Saga 3, and Yoku’s Island Express It also announced that others, like Undertale, Timespinner, and For the King, are headed to Game Pass on PC. 

Nintendo’s Lawyers Need To Chill

By the letter of the law, all this is fine, but the letter of the law can and often does suck

Sony, Microsoft, And Nintendo Come Out Against Trump’s Tariffs On Gaming Consoles

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have joined forces to tell the U.S. government that its newly-proposed tariffs on goods imported from China would hurt consumers, put jobs at risk, and stifle innovation, according to a joint letter sent by the companies to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. As part of its ongoing trade war…

Telltale’s Minecraft Currently Costs $700 On Xbox 360 (But You’re Not Supposed To Buy It)

If you really think about it, all video games—dazzling feats of technical mastery assembled over the course of countless man hours—are priceless. But if you think about it even harder, you probably still won’t want to pay $100 for a single episode of the soon-to-be-delisted Minecraft: Story Mode Currently, each episode of the eight-part narrative-driven…

Walking Around Minecraft Earth Feels Amazing

I’ve been a casual player of both Minecraft and of the augmented reality game Pokémon Go, so when Minecraft Earth was announced as an augmented reality version of Minecraft, I was curious. There’s a lot to Minecraft, so I was skeptical that the entire game could be scaled to a touchscreen experience on your phone.…