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For gaming fans, the Xbox press conference is one of the highlights of the calendar. It’s where Microsoft announces new consoles, upcoming releases and updates. There’s always a lot for gamers to get excited about, but this year’s conference was a bumper edition with some huge new releases and big news as the company announced more than 30 new Xbox Series X games, all set to release in the coming year.

What Did Fans Like About the Conference?

The Xbox Bethesda Showcase was one of the biggest talking points of the conference. The developers had previously been criticised for relying too heavily on cinematics, and they responded by blessing the community with extended gameplay demos of both Redial and Starfield. The Starfield demo had fans particularly excited as game director Todd Howard showed off a groundbreaking number of new features. The new game features over 1000 planets spread across 100 solar systems for players to explore. If that wasn’t enough, you can fly your ship and get into battles in deep space, as well as entirely customising your spaceship. Considering that this was just the extended demo, there will still be lots of new features for players to discover when the latest addition to the series launches in the first half of 2023.

One of the most interesting developments in recent months has been the resurgence in the popularity of Minecraft. The game had been slowly dying a death for years while Fortnite soared into mainstream popularity. With Minecraft rising from the dead, a new instalment in the franchise was announced. Minecraft Legends is a brand new spin-off game. The demo didn’t give us much to go on, but there seemed to be a world to explore as you make friends with creatures around the game to take on a threat together. For fans that have spent years building houses and tackling enemies, it’s a nice change of pace within the same ecosystem. Minecraft Legends is set to launch in early 2023.

The Announcement of New Games

The annual Xbox conference is usually a time for game developers to announce the release of new games and give a sneak peek as to what fans can expect from the next release – 2022 was no exception. There were plenty of announcements surrounding new games which have fans excited about what could come next in the world of X Box games in 2022.

For racing fans, the news came in the form of Turn 10 finally giving an update on Forza Motorsport. Forza Motorsport 7 was released in 2017 and became an overnight success. Fans were very quickly begging the developer for the next instalment in the franchise. They announced it in early 2020 before going so quiet that fans wondered if the project had been dropped. During the conference Turn 10 gave an extended look at the new edition’s gameplay, calling it the most technically advanced racing game ever. They might have taken two years to get her, but the ridiculous attention to detail makes it worth the wait.

One of the most interesting announcements was that of collaboration between Hideo Kojima & Xbox. Details were left intentionally vague at the conference as the director wasn’t ready to show anything, so basically, all we know is that the world-class developer is making an Xbox-exclusive game powered by the cloud. Kojima was a little more forthcoming with information away from the conference, stating in an interview that it’s “a completely new game that no one has ever experienced or seen before”. He then added, “With Microsoft’s cutting edge cloud technology and the change in industry trends it has now become possible to challenge myself to make this never-before-seen concept”. While that’s all of the official information available, the rumour mill has been running wild; there are suggestions that it could be a VR-focused game, and a recent leak suggested that the game is called Overdose.

Games Console Announcements

It isn’t just gaming developers that bring news to the conference, you can usually expect some news on the games console itself, what ideas are being developed and if there are any changes likely in future Xbox console versions.

They may have been no new hardware announced during this conference, but fans were excited to see how the Xbox Series X will be used in new ways. The now two-year-old console continues to be one of the most technologically advanced consoles on the mainstream market and has provided opportunities for developers to go wild with gameplay. Several of the AAA games announced had fans in awe at the attention to detail, stunning gameplay, reactive controls and immaculate rendering – all of this is thanks to the Xbox Series X and its powerful hardware.

The Future of Xbox Games

The Xbox press conference gave gamers plenty to be excited about; with a wide-ranging list of new games that rivals this list of online casinos for choice. With over 30 games shown off at the conference, alongside DLC content, exciting partnerships and some additions to the Game Pass, this is going to be a riveting 12 months for Xbox gamers.

One thing that we are seeing with future games is the development of technology to add even more features to games. The popularity of things like VR gaming, metaverse and even microtransactions within games means that developers are being kept on their toes in terms of what gaming fans like & what they want to spend their money on. With so many new games in the pipeline, the 2022 conference game X Box fans a peek at what they can expect in the future. However, with technology always developing and gaming trends always changing it is impossible to say what the future of gaming looks like in the long term. However, fans will already be looking forward to the 2023 conference so they can continue to follow the gaming journey and see what the future holds for gaming fans across the globe.