#Xbox Developer Direct

[wolfgabe]

One detail I love about DOOM The Dark Ages is how the new UI is a clear callback to the UI bar in classic DOOM and QUAKE

[grinbrothers]

Xbox Developer Direct 2025 Thoughts!

Normally I'd have done a Tea Time reaction, but I'm phasing that out as a video format. What I'm keeping is the discussing part though, as I share my thoughts through a post like this (wonder if I should make some fancy artwork and title for these posts). Spoilers by the way, so go check out that Developer Direct!

Anyway, before I talk about the two games that did interest me from this Developer Direct, I figured I'd get my two negatives out of the way. First, no Dead or Alive announcement. This as a negative is on me, but when Ninja Gaiden 4 led on to a "one more thing", that had my hopes up. The other negative is that the two games that did interest me in this presentation are unlikely to have physical releases; one is being made by a new company and the other is an Xbox Studios game, which given Avowed isn't getting a physical release... yeah, bummer.

On the positives, both South of Midnight and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looked really cool. The American South folklore of South of Midnight is a unique focal point as is the choice to base the fighting around textile crafting. Fascinating inspirations and I loved the developers insights into it. Said combat also has a nice rhythm to how the fights play out, as well as a nice rhythm in the enhancing music as the phases of bosses progress. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just makes me think of the direction I wish Final Fantasy took; glorious turn based battles with glorious graphics. The introduction of some brighter colours and uplifting comedy in what has otherwise been portrayed as a bleak world is real nice to see. Levity allows tragedy to hit harder and hope is something I adore seeing. The Paper Mario style action commands continue to look fun.

So yeah, a pretty good Developer Direct with two games that appealed to me. I tend to only buy physical games though and my interest in Xbox has waned a lot (pretty much sticking to Nintendo and Evercade now) but I'm happy to give a thumbs up to the Xbox focused showing.

[zeromaster]

🔴#ZeroStreams IS LIVE!!!🔴#VTUBER DEVELOPERS!!! | #XboxDeveloperDirect Jan 2025 | !throne !patreon !gg !16bw

https://twitch.tv/Zeromaster

[lemmonhead67]

DOOM THE DARK AGES GAMEPLAY REACTION (Xbox Developer Direct) - Nerd Squa...

[mr-fent]

Something about "Executive Producer Todd Howard" being front and center in the Indian Jones trailer was oddly funny

I am kind of hyped for what could be the first good Indian Jones game, something that should have been unfathomably easy to do.

[imoverthinkingitagain]

[geekcavepodcast]

South of Midnight Xbox Developer Direct 2025 Story Trailer

Compulsion Games' South of Midnight follows teenage Hazel, who is "pulled into a Southern Gothic world where reality and fantasy are interwoven, and ancient creatures from folklore emerge." (Xbox) Hazel will have to use her new magical Weaving powers to survive in this world and ultimately heal it.

South of Midnight launches on April 8, 2025.

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Got my popcorn ready for Developer Direct if Avowed isn't first on I'm gonna bite

[wolfleblack]

Xbox and Bethesda Developer Direct scheduled for January 18, promises gameplay from Indiana Jones

Xbox and Bethesda will be streaming a Developer Direct event on January 18, the pair have announced. Beginning at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm GMT the event will specifically be looking at four games, including 10 minutes of gameplay from Machine Games’ upcoming Indiana Jones title, and yet another look at Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, a game which has arguably been trotted out a few too many times at…

[lemmonhead67]

NEW INDIANA JONES GAME REACTION ( Xbox Developer Direct 2024)- Nerd Squa...

[felassan]

[link] to a video interview with DA:TV Creative Director, John Epler.

Notes:

In-world it’s been 9 years since the events of DA:I

“At the end of Trespasser, Solas declared he was going to break the world to rebuild it”

The section of the game that we saw in the Gameplay Reveal takes place “after Varric and another handful of adventurers, the initial Veilguard, have been tracking him down throughout Thedas”

If you have played previous DA games, there’s a lot of lore and references in DA:TV that will add to the experience

No save transfer, but there are opportunities to reference what you did in previous games

Tevinter is the most impressive civilization in modern Thedas because it’s a nation that runs on magic

Lore/art direction: “Magic has started seeping into the world through Solas’ ritual”, “and so you’re seeing the effects of that on the space, and on the visuals as well”

The CC team and character art team spent a lot of time working on making sure that hairstyles behaved appropriately, in a realistic way, and on representing a lot of different hairstyles

They wanted to provide more opportunities to spend time with the characters in a way that previous games didn’t allow for as much

They “did start a first version of Dragon Age 4 after Trespasser. Anthem came out, we needed to ship development to that. And when we came back we really rebooted development, started fresh, but the story has remained the same throughout, the goals of that story have remained the same. We’ve always wanted to take Solas’ story and put a final conclusion on that” (Fel note: the previous project was code-named Joplin. It was since revised to such an extent that its code name changed to Morrison, per the Bio25 book. This sounds like lots of the story, beats, themes etc from Joplin have remained despite the project change :>)

“A lot of what we want to do in this game is show the story as much as tell through conversation, dialogue”. They want the spectacle to be part of the storytelling, they want the player to be able to feel the story happening around them as much as it being told to them

They aren’t getting more specific regarding the release date as yet beyond Fall 2024

Game is coming out on Xbox Series S and X, PS5, PC

Will it be playable on Steam Deck? They are “not going to get into that quite yet, so”

[source]