Cognition Dissemination: The Microsoft & Bethesda Showcase Was a Vision of the Future

Microsoft didn’t let the lack of E3 2022 stop them from largely holding their press conference as usual. Largely. The Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022 still adhered to pandemic norms in how it was a digital show outside the occasional address from developers and executives, but all these digital showcases have served the same purpose of providing an ardent gamer fanbase with a stream of game announcements. Microsoft couldn’t wait to hold this show, as they had plenty of games to announce following the buying spree they’ve gone on in the last few years. They got the most out of the 95-minute runtime.

All those development partners came in handy, too, considering few games were shown from the studios Microsoft has owned for years. The only legacy series with a new installment shown was Forza Motorsport, the newest photorealistic driving simulation installment planned for release in spring 2023. Those new Fable and Perfect Dark games announced a while back were nowhere to be seen. But it’s not as if they needed them when there were plenty of others to show from development partners, of varying genres and budgets. After this, no one can say Microsoft is laser-focused on one particular audience.

The biggest showcase was reserved for Bethesda’s Starfield, originally planned for release this year before being delayed until early 2023. The game, simply put, fuses the gameplay of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4 with the exploration of No Man’s Sky, to few complaints considering it was what fans wanted from this game in the first place. A couple of sections shown suffered from questionable framerates, perhaps a partial reason for the delay, but there’s a good chance of it getting polished to ensure that it will be on par with prior Bethesda Game Launches. Sure, it will have plenty of glitches, but anyone purchasing a Bethesda game at launch should know what they’re getting by now.

There were plenty of other big games too. Arkane’s Redfall, another game planned for this year before being delayed, got a nice gameplay showcase to display its action and co-op nature. They also showed how they’re keeping their PC-centric titles around with Ara: History Untold, a turn-based real-time strategy title with a trailer narrated by the legendary Shohreh Aghdashloo. There was also High on Life, a first-person shooter with a trailer that contained so much Justin Roiland that I thought it was a Rick and Morty game with a more realistic art style initially. Hideo Kojima also has… something in the works with Xbox, but it sounds like it will be a 2024 release at the earliest with how it wasn’t revealed.

Not all the big games were exclusives, though. Microsoft won’t own Activision Blizzard until June 2023 (assuming none of the lawsuits result in the courts intervening), which means Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV will be coming to every gaming platform they can — the former even hitting Switch when it releases on October 4th. Not that Microsoft is keeping all the games from companies they own to Xbox consoles, as shown through action-strategy game Minecraft Legends from Mojang.

The games shown were also aimed towards a variety of interests. I don’t have much personal interest in games like Forza Motorsport, but I took immediate interest in Team Ninja’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, a title that sounds like it will be Nioh mixed with a little Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in a Three Kingdoms China setting. (It’s also coming to every non-Switch platform.) And I absolutely took interest in Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal coming to Xbox platforms and Windows 10 (and PlayStation 5 and Steam eventually). Atlus moves in mysterious was, but this was the most surprising of all despite Soul Hackers 2 also coming to the system. A Plague Tale: Requiem also looks interesting, though I should probably play the first game one of these days.

It was similarly commendable how ample room was left for smaller games, many of which received as much attention as their larger brethren. Obsidian’s Pentiment was finally revealed after rumors swirled for months, a narrative adventure with a unique art style. Both The Last Case of Benedict Fox and Ravenlock, the former a Lovecraftian Metroidvania title with the latter being an action RPG with 3D Minecraft-like pixel creatures, also stuck out to me. It’s also extremely funny how many people expected Hollow Knight: Silksong to surface on a Nintendo Indie Showcase or Nintendo Direct, only for it to do so here. There was no release timeframe given outside it arriving in the next year, so there’s still time for it to resurface again on a Nintendo thing.

A significant focus was on the sheer number of day-one games coming to Game Pass for Xbox platforms and PC — nearly every single title shown. If anyone remained unconvinced about how important the service, and thus overall video game subscription services, will be to Microsoft going forward, this showcase should have removed all doubt.

You likely get my point by now: Microsoft wanted to focus on a variety of software within a fixed amount of time, for games all due within the next year. They delivered on that promise. The showcase’s presentation was a testament to how quickly these can move from one announcement or demonstration to another without the need for banter and other nonsensical matters — even if the end result was less memes. The differences between this presentation’s quality were starker following the main Summer Game Fest 2022 stream, a prime example of prolonged mediocrity that resulted in host Geoff Keighley’s worst stream in years.

We’re still living in a pandemic, but a number of the norms established during that time will preserve for years to come for the convenience they offered. Virtual presentations will be one of them, whether E3 2023 truly returns as an in-person event or not. The overly enthusiastic “wooing” crowds between every announcement and demonstration will personally not be missed.

I am going to miss having all the gaming news of the summer in one convenient place, but there must always be some kind of sacrifice. The gaming audience will more than likely adapt to it in good time; it’s not like they’ll have a choice.