Xbox Series X Game Reveals July 2020: What to Expect

June 29, 2020 at 10:31pm
By Jason Stettner

The largest Xbox Series X games reveal event is almost here, with it apparently taking place in the latter part of July. With that I thought it would be interesting to compile what to expect from this particular event.

The hope is that this one delivers fully on their vision, whereas the last one was sort of a warm-up tease that didn’t quite hit the mark to say the least. It’s definitely disappointing not to see this sort of thing in person, though that’s just the state of the world these days.

It’s also weird to get this type of reveal after June, since everything is typically jam packed into the week or so that makes up E3 each year. Anyways, here’s a sort of broken down list by expectations and how safe certain games are in terms of being something you’ll see at the show.

Likely Games
I think it’s been almost entirely confirmed that we’ll see Halo Infinite at this event. It’s the flagship franchise that had a massive uptick in interest after just revealing a short audio clip. It’s not too long until the release, and the fan base is most certainly starved for information on it.

I would also anticipate seeing Cyberpunk 2077 since there’s some marketing attached to that one, and a little bit of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of these two games since the first just had an info showcase blow out at the end of June and I imagine Creed will be part of Ubisoft’s event which is also in June.

I’d be shocked if we don’t finally hear about what’s going on with Battletoads. Minecraft Xbox Series X Edition would likely be given a small tease, would be silly not to showcase the technology being deployed to one of the biggest games ever made. That technology being ray tracing, or even some platform specific enhancements.

I would expect a reel of Xbox Series X Optimized older games to be shown here, just so players know what to expect from some of their favorites on the change-over. We know of Gears 5 for sure, Halo 5: Guardians since it was noted as getting HDR support and I’ll briefly guess some others. I would say safely that Sea of Thieves would be included since that continues to grow. To quickly list others; Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Forza Horizon 4, The Outer Worlds, Ori and the Will of the Wisps and some third party titles too.

I want to clarify that this is probably just a small reel of quick clips. A tag line along the lines of, don’t leave your gaming library behind and experience them better than ever before on Xbox Series X. They might even show a few older titles since they mentioned being able to possibly boost FPS, increase resolution and throw HDR in. Who knows, maybe a Crimson Skies running at 4k with HDR at 120fps or something like that as an example.

Might See Games
I would imagine we might see Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and possibly Project Mara from Ninja Theory. This is a showcase of what the console is going to be able to achieve, reminding the audience of Hellblade’s incredible visuals are a way to do so.

I would anticipate seeing the full reveal of Everwild since Rare has teased that previously and now is a good time to give the full presentation on what it is. I feel that Double Fine will showcase their recent efforts on Psychonauts 2 since that’s been in development for awhile. It’s also been awhile for whatever The Initiative is working on, would be a good time to see the vision of their game at this reveal.

InXile Entertainment will probably have Wasteland 3 there since it releases in the near future, and I’ll also rope in their apparent worked on AAA RPG that’s in the works. I place fairly high bets on Forza Motorsport 8 being shown, this is Turn10’s time to shine as they’ve taken extra time between release cycles for this one. The Forza series is a bit of a staple for what the platform can achieve, and they really push boundaries.

Other possible games to quickly list some off include The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Gothic Remake, Elden Ring and Dying Light 2. I put Dying Light last as that one has been delayed indefinitely, though it seems like an impressive offering from what I’ve viewed over the last couple E3 events, one to watch out for. The others are all sort of known, we just don’t have too much on their timing or presentations. I removed some Ubisoft releases since I imagine they’ll be showcased at the special Ubisoft event in the same month that I mentioned prior.

Rumored Games and More
This is the more fun section, going over some of the rumors and other titles that I’d like to see presented at the show. While we jokingly all want the next Viva Piñata entry with groundbreaking next generation piñatas and ray tracing I’ll get down to more likely options within this.

The first big one that I do actually expect to see is Fable. There have been many rumors of this being the RPG Playground is working on, and if it isn’t they’ve built too high of expectations I suppose. It would be nice to see full blown gameplay, but even a title card might delight.

I would like to see Age of Empires IV shown further since it’s been some time since we were given the minute or so tease. It would be a great offering if they could get that on the console. There continue to be some rumors around Perfect Dark coming back and after having visited the first game the other day I feel that IP is ripe for a follow-up in modern times.

I would guess that Undead Labs will showcase State of Decay 3 since it’s about that time in their development cycle. With that, possibly the upcoming new IP that Compulsion Games has been working on since it’s been awhile after the release of We Happy Few. We also know that Mojang Studios made their name change for another project in the works, that could very well be teased there too. I don’t know if it’s too soon, but possibly Obsidian Entertainment will present their side project that isn’t Grounded or The Outer Worlds.

The Dream Games
It’s probably about time for another Ninja Gaiden I would imagine. There’s a bit of a history there and there’s some renewed interest from gamers due to Xbox Backwards Compatibility and Xbox Game Pass. Well, platformers are popular again and maybe it’s time for the platform to embrace a friendlier mascot in the form of the team Banjo-Kazooie.

I personally miss Conker, so that might be a fun series to have return. The ultimate out there dream for me at this point would be to see Shadowrun return. I loved the FPS take on the series, but regardless of that this is a universe that could work well for multiple game types. I know many are also missing MechAssault series. I also really think it’s a good time to have a party series, such as Fuzion Frenzy for their Game Pass offerings. A new one at that. Another long shot might be Killer Instinct 2, it would be good to have a main fighter series available for the platform again.

All recent acquisitions that have a few existing projects on the way, while also working on future Xbox Game Studio releases. That’s about it for what to expect, let me know if I missed anything big as I think I got the essentials down. This will be the big moment for the platform to shine, and hopefully this does deliver some unique new surprises that are completely out of nowhere. Read our write-up on the recent Xbox shooter CrossfireX, or check out the general hub for the Xbox Series X platform below.

Read our CrossfireX Preview
View our Xbox Series X Hub