Microsoft shows Halo Infinite multiplayer, Forza Horizon 5, and more at its Xbox Games Showcase

Microsoft has just wrapped up its much-anticipated Xbox & Bethesda Games showcase, which was pretty much a big advertisement for the company’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service. 27 of the 30 games Microsoft showed today will be available on Game Pass on day one, with the 3 exceptions being EA’s Battlefield 2042, Ubisoft’s Far Cry 6, and Blizzard’s Diablo II Resurrected.

The company revealed today 10 new games are joining the Xbox Game Pass catalog today including Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and Fallout 3, with 18 additional games to follow before the end of the year. This list includes several high-profile Xbox Game Studios titles including Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 4, and Age of Empires 4.

Microsoft opened the show with a new trailer for Starfield, Bethesda’s brand new IP that will launch exclusively on Xbox and PC in Fall 2022. Microsoft really needed to show more of its first-party lineup today, and they did so with Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode, the Xbox Series X|S version of Flight Simulator, the gameplay reveal of Forza Horizon 5, as well as a brand new IP from Arkane Austin named Redfall.

We’ll be focusing on Microsoft’s upcoming first-party games first, then we’ll highlight some of the biggest third-party games coming soon to Xbox Game Pass. Some big names were missing today including CrossfireX, Forza Motorsport, Hellblade 2, Avowed, the Fable and Perfect Dark reboot, and more, but Microsoft is probably right to not tease more of its upcoming games too early.

Starfield, the new IP from Bethesda got to open the Xbox showcase today, but we still don’t know much about the space-themed adventure. The new trailer we’ve seen today revealed that the game is set hundreds of years in our future at the beginning of humanity’s final journey, and you can see in the trailer below a man is a spaceship that’s about to take off.

Starfield could be a great space exploration game and we’re looking forward to learning more about it ahead of its November 11 2022 release on Xbox Series X|S and PC. As expected, the game will be exclusive to the ecosystem and won’t ship on PlayStation consoles.

We had to wait a little bit to get some news about Halo Infinite today, but we got to see today an exciting gameplay trailer for the game’s upcoming multiplayer mode. Moreover, 343 Industries gave us a new look at the game’s campaign featuring a new AI companion that will aid Master Chief throughout his journey.

Microsoft confirmed today that the Halo Infinite Campaign and Multiplayer modes will launch together this holiday season and that the game’s multiplayer mode will support 120FPS on the Xbox Series X. The new grappling hook we’ve seen last year will also be available in Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, and classic modes such as Capture the flag and Big Team Battle will make their comeback. We probably didn’t see enough of Halo Infinite today, but we’ll likely see more of it ahead of its Fall 2021 release.

Flight Simulator will also make its debut on Xbox Series X|S consoles next month on July 27, and the trailer we’ve seen today looks quite impressive. There’s still no word about an Xbox One release, but we wouldn’t be surprised if developer Asobo Studios made the call to only ship the ambitious simulation on Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox consoles.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator team also revealed today an upcoming Top Gun expansion that has been developed in partnership with Paramount Studios. The experience will ship around the release of the new Top Gun: Maverick movie in November, and we should get more details about it soon.

This one was quite unexpected, but the RTS game Age of Empires 4 will launch on PC on October 28. We got an exciting new gameplay trailer today, and there will be 8 diverse civilizations at launch. The game will include 4 campaigns with 35 missions featuring legendary historical figures, 8 player multiplayer modes, user-generated content tools for custom games, and an advanced tutorial system for newcomers.

PlayGround Games also made a big splash today by revealing Forza Horizon 5, coming on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on November 9. The game is set in Mexico and will be the largest and most diverse open world ever seen in the Forza Horizon series.

Forza Horizon 5 will feature next-gen Horizon live servers, a new volumetric lighting system, ray-tracing support in Forzavista, and many other new graphical features. The Eliminator battle royale mode that made its debut in Forza Horizon 4 will also make its comeback, but Forza Horizon 5 will also introduce a new sandbox mode named Event Lab. You can learn more about the game in the 7 minutes video below.

Psychonauts 2, the sequel to the original Psychonauts game from Double Fine Studios will also be released on August 25. The platform adventure game got its first gameplay trailer today and it looks like a fun sequel to the critically-acclaimed original game released back in 2005. Psychonauts 2 will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass, but it won’t be exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem as it was in development before Microsoft acquired its developer in 2019.

If Microsoft Flight Simulator will get a cross-over event with the upcoming Top Gun movie, the upcoming Season 3 of Sea of Thieves will also bring a fun cross-over with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. On June 22, Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life will allow players to experience a new story featuring Captain Jack Sparrow and let them search for the world’s greatest Pirate Treasure.

Fallout 76, Bethesda’s take on a multiplayer version of Fallout is also getting a free Steel Reign expansion on July 7 which will conclude the Brotherhood of Steel storyline. Next year, the free Expeditions: The Pitt update will also take players outside of Appalachia for the first time and bring story driven, repeatable missions.

Grounded, the survival game from Obsidian Entertainment is also getting a Shroom and Doom update on June 30. Players can expect new pets to befriend, the ability to build castles, and try to survive encounters with a new type of deadly spider called the Broodmother. The Shroom and Doom update will also add achievements to the game, which will still remain in the Game Preview program for now.

Obsidian Entertainment also revealed today The Outer Worlds 2, the sequel to its new action RPG title released in 2019. The Outer Worlds 2 will introduce a new solar system and crew, but the game still has no release date for now. However, we’ve learned today that it will be exclusive to Xbox Series X|S consoles and PC.

Arkane Studios, the creator of the Dishonored series also unveiled today a brand new Xbox exclusive IP named Redfall. The game will be an immersive shooter that can be played in co-op, with a cast of four vampire salyers tasked with eliminating a legion of vampires who have blocked out the sun in the quaint island town of Redfall, Massachusetts.

Redfall will launch on Xbox Series X|S and PC in Summer 2022, and it looks like a great new exclusive IP for the Xbox ecosystem. This game was Xbox head Phil Spencer’s “one more thing” to conclude the Xbox Games showcase, and it was a really nice surprise overall

We’ve seen many other third-party games coming day on Xbox Game Pass, including The Ascent (July 29), Hades (August 13), Back 4 Blood (October 12), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chernobyl (April 2022), as well as A Plague Tale: Requiem (2022). You can get a more complete recap of all the games Microsoft showed during its Xbox & Bethesda Games showcase on Xbox Wire.