Microsoft shows off new Xbox Series X games, including a terrifying H.R. Giger-style nightmare
Aux Features Games
If you’ve followed video game news for, oh, six months, you should pretty much know what to expect when a console-maker (non-Nintendo) announces that it’s going to show off a handful of the first new games for its new system. It’s going to be the meat and potatoes stuff, like the shooters, the Madden sequel, the Japanese role-playing game that doesn’t offer many details beyond the main hero’s anime-style hair, and the Assassin’s Creed that looks a lot like every other Assassin’s Creed but will nonetheless provide new and exciting ways to stick blades into people throats. One thing you might not expect, though, is some kind of alien—and by alien we mean Alien—penis coming out of a wall. Lucky for us, then, that Microsoft managed to include all of the above in today’s big showcase of the first games for its new Xbox Series X console, from the Assassin Creed to the… alien penis.
So let’s start with that, because it’s hard to talk about anything else. It came from a trailer for a game called Scorn by Ebb Software, which is apparently a first-person shooter/horror game that started life as a Kickstarter project. Hey, as long as it didn’t start life using any of the H.R. Giger nightmare shit that’s in the trailer, we’re on board.
Other than that, Microsoft didn’t show off anything extremely surprising. The stream showed a new Madden and talked about the new Assassin’s Creed that was announced last week, and multiple people reiterated that a lot of Xbox Series X games will support what Microsoft calls “Smart Delivery.” That means the cloud will know to let you download the best version of a game for the particular platform you’re on, so you can play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on your dusty old Xbox One, but you can play a better version of it on your new Series X without having to pay for a Series X copy.
You can rewatch the whole stream below, which includes games like Dirt 5, a puzzle adventure about someone having webbed fingers called Call Of The Sea, a weirdly creepy space shooter called Chorvs (or Chorus), Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2, a game called Scarlet Nexus with anime effects that look so good, and a cyberpunk RPG that is not Cyberpunk 2077 called The Ascent. Smart viewers will notice that there aren’t any games published by Microsoft here, like your Halos or your Forzas, as those are being saved for later this summer.
18 Comments
Scorn was actually the original name for the movie John Wick, but Keanu liked the main character’s name so much they made it the movie title.WERE YOU EVEN AWARE OF THIS FACT??!?
That title alone would drag the movie down an entire letter grade.
What a fascinating art style to base a game around. Hopefully they came up with something that utilizes this style more than just “shoot the gross things with your guns.”
tbf, the gross things in that Giger clip need shooting. Or nuking from space.
I’ve never found the Xbox sound effect ping so comforting–so glad when it came up at the end.
Dirt 5, a puzzle adventure about someone having webbed fingers Well that’s a new direction for the series.
I don’t care much for “console wars”, as my backlog on all current consoles will attest, but with recently winning a year long subscription to Game Pass and my rearrangement of home electronics, xbox is my first next gen purchase
Now I want to play Xenophobe.
i’ve been idly watching for scorn news for like four years now. good to know there’s something more substantial than just ephemeral “wouldn’t this be cool” trailers at this point
it’s funny because i know in my head that ‘xbox series x’ is the name of the next gen, new one that’s coming out…but my brain genuinely still feels like the name is a mistake. there’s some unshakeable part of me that feels like ‘no, actually the new xbox is called something else, that’s still the xbox one x’. doesn’t matter how many articles i read or anything, there’s some deep, primal part of me that can’t accept it. it’s so weird.sidebar: my favorite xbox naming convention thing was when ‘xbox one x’ came out and everyone said ‘well, actually, because its shortform is XBOX it makes sense’, as if anyone would call their ‘xbox one s’ XBOS.i have a headache now.
You know what they should have called it… Xbox 5. Who gives a shit if there wasn’t a fourth Xbox, let’s just end the madness.
It’s the same problem as the Wii U. You get confused consumers going “wait, is this a new console or an add-on?” All of which detracts from the most important question: “Do I need this?”
Seeing the reaction online, it seems like no matter whose conference or direct it is these days the consensus is always disappointment and I get it, I would have loved to have seen more actual gameplay instead of in-game-engine rendered scenes and trailers. However, this was the first of many “events” and all third party to boot, our expectations were probably too high. Things will heat up in the next 3 months. Still plenty of time to get hyped and get content out there.I was actually impressed by the number of games revealed and how many had smart delivery attached, possibly one of the most pro consumer things we’ve seen in years. I can’t wait to get a date on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, that game has me very hyped, and there was a good mix of action, horror, and FPS games during this presentation. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
This is why we need E3…
Brings back memories of this old oddity.
You mean nightmares? As much from the artwork as from the bizarre, nonsensical way you have to play it. It looked cool and frightening but as a game it was terrible. I think there was a sequel that might have been better in that aspect but I wasn’t going back to that shadow world or whatever.
Geez that Scorn trailer was legit disturbing while being mercifully understated. Gave me some Prometheus vibes.
Ascent and the anime game look good, but I’m a Switch man, and that’s how I’ll stay.