[COLUMN] Okay Xbox, You Knocked It Out of the Park | by Marty Sliva

Xbox walked into the first major showcase of 2025 with a lot to prove, and 45 minutes later walked out with an incredibly impressive showing of what they have in store for the first half of the year and beyond.

It feels like we’ve been talking about how “Xbox is almost there” for years. The promise of a major first-party Game Pass release every quarter was just around the corner. About how we’re at the precipice of finally seeing their plan in action. Honestly, it feels like we’ve been saying that for longer than we’ve been predicting an imminent Switch 2 reveal, so to have both of them finally hit in the same week was nice.

But honestly, it does finally feel like 2025 is the year that Xbox’s decade-long acquisition spree is finally blossoming. And while it’s true that this is mostly a shared garden that can be harvested by anyone no matter which console they choose to play on, it’s hard to deny just how impressive their lineup is, especially when paired with a Game Pass subscription.

The showcase kicked off with the reveal of Ninja Gaiden 4, a project helmed by Team Ninja and Platinum Games. Rumors before the event pointed to this mystery game being a new installment in a long-running and beloved Japanese franchise. While part of me hoped that it might be Nier (it’s gotta be time to see what Yoko Taro’s been cooking, right?), I can’t deny that Ninja Gaiden 4 looks really solid. Given last year’s success of Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong, it feels like folks are hungry for more classic, action-heavy games that don’t adhere to the strict soulslike formula that’s become so commonplace over the past decade.

This paired nicely with the shadow drop of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Xbox used a similar strategy at this showcase two years ago when they revealed Hi-Fi Rush from Tango, and released it that very same day. Let’s just hope they treat these devs better than they treated Tango, though I’m glad to know that story eventually had a happy ending.

The showcase pressed on with an extended feature on South of Midnight, a game that looks better and better each time I see it. The writing, atmosphere, and presentation that evokes the look of stop-motion films make this one that I’m really looking forward to jumping into when it drops on April 8th. This presentation highlighted some of the movement and combat abilities you’ll get throughout the game, and while I’d still like to see a longer, extended clip of just raw gameplay, I have faith in the team at Compulsion.

It’s also nice to see Xbox putting their weight behind an exciting new IP, something we bemoan the lack of in a modern age when playing it safe with familiar franchises is becoming more and more common. And South of Midnight wasn’t the only new IP there, as the showcase followed it up with another look at Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which was revealed last summer and finally has a release date of April 24th.

This first game from Sandfall Interactive has been in development for over four years, and honestly, it shows. The sleek presentation outside of battle is evident in every cutscene, but the stylish combat is the star of the show here, with obvious shades of modern Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio in the best possible way. The stellar cast and reveal of a classic JRPG-styled overworld to wander around sold me on this one hard. I’m always a bit hesitant when a new studio takes a first swing this hard, but if this one manages to connect, I think we’ll have a banger on our hands. That said, I think this is one where a pre-release demo of the first hour or two where your progress can carry over into the final release would help sell a lot of folks who might be on the fence and might not have a Game Pass subscription.

And the final game in the showcase was probably the safest bet of the bunch, in DOOM: The Dark Ages. It’s been nearly five years since DOOM Eternal released early on in the pandemic on the same day as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the two of which honestly being rare beams of light in an otherwise awful stretch of time.

And I dig what this prequel is showing off. Even though I’ll miss the polarizing mobility and platforming that was so central to Eternal, having this version of the Slayer come across more like a tank seems to bring something new and refreshing to the table, and I can’t express just how much I adore everything about the new Shield Saw. The Rygar is strong with this one. Also, DOOM’s May 15th release date has me hoping that the Switch 2 drops that same day, and that a new Animal Crossing game is ready at launch. I need both of them in my life at the same time again.

So yeah, a pretty packed lineup for Xbox, with one shadow drop, and another three hitting in the next four months. This doesn’t include games like Avowed, which is just around the corner, or other games possibly hitting the back half of the year like Fable, The Outer Worlds 2, Call of Duty, and more. But the big asterisk here is that a lot of these games, including Ninja Gaiden 4, Clair Obscur, and DOOM: The Dark Ages, are also all launching on PlayStation 5 as well as Xbox and PC. And I’d also be willing to bet that come Nintendo’s big Switch 2 blowout on April 2nd, we see even more Xbox games heading over to Nintendo’s new platform.

Some might view this as a sign that Xbox’s time as a major platform is coming to an end, and that they’re slowly transitioning into a software developer and publisher like SEGA did after the Dreamcast. But honestly, I just see this as the next logical step of Xbox transcending a singular piece of plastic and instead truly embracing their “play anywhere” strategy. If this means that the dumb tribalism of console wars fades away in favor of us just engaging with the art and talking about the games themselves, then I’ll consider it a win.

With Xbox planting their flag in the sand for the first half of the year, and the aforementioned Switch 2 blowout just two months away, it feels like Sony is the major stakeholder that we’re most in the dark with at the moment. 

It’s been a weird year for PlayStation. Even when they release surprise hits like Helldivers 2 and genuine GOTYs like Astro Bot, it feels like those end up getting overshadowed by news of a studios closing, projects being canceled, or an entire game like Concord being scrapped just days after its launch.

I obviously have faith that developers like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sony Santa Monica, and Sucker Punch are working on bangers both announced and unannounced. But the recent reports that the immensely talented team at Bluepoint had been spending the time since the excellent Demon’s Souls remaster on a multiplayer God of War project, just to have it scrapped, left a very bad taste in my mouth, and was just another example of Sony’s shortsighted and failed experiment into the live-service market. The best way for Sony to pivot away from the games they aren’t working on is to show us the games that they are working on, so here's hoping that they have a showcase in the works that delivers the same consistent quality that Xbox was able to pull off with this one.