“Starfield” and “Redfall” are also day-one titles for Xbox Game Pass, making them accessible to players who are minding their spending.ĭFC’s forecasts don’t spell doom for PlayStation by any means. Set across an openly explorable expanse of space, “Starfield” should benefit largely from the absence of new games from EA’s “Mass Effect” franchise in recent years. That’s due in May and will be followed by “Starfield,” a brand-new IP from Bethesda Game Studios, in September.

The first, Arkane’s “Redfall,” is a cooperative multiplayer online experience taking place on an open-world map.

This was vital to countering a negative perception of Xbox’s health at the start of the year, as the console brand, its suite of development studios and Bethesda were all impacted by as many as 10,000 job cuts enacted across Microsoft in January.Īfter “Hi-Fi Rush,” Bethesda’s next two games are both highly anticipated titles. Tango’s “Hi-Fi Rush” was surprise-released on Xbox in January to critical acclaim and reached 2 million players in March. Luckily for Xbox, the timing of these games is a primer for much bigger Bethesda titles hitting the market in 2023 - all of which are console exclusives. Both games released on PlayStation 5 a year prior to those dates. When that deal closed, Bethesda was still obliged to deliver two timed exclusives for PlayStation: Arkane’s “Deathloop” and Tango Gameworks’ “Ghostwire: Tokyo.” The former bowed on the Xbox Series consoles last September, while the latter releases on Xbox in April. But the optimistic outlook for in-house games at Xbox has much to do with Microsoft’s successful acquisition of publisher Bethesda Softworks in early 2021. All eyes are focused on the closing of Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire “Call of Duty” behemoth Activision Blizzard, which is nearing completion.

Hi-fi rush roxanne