The Monday letters page sifts through all the announcements from Summer Game Fest and Xbox Games Showcase, as a reader is not yet convinced by the new Fable.
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Exclusive reasoning
I thought the Xbox Games Showcase was pretty good (finally, they’ve realised people don’t want to hear from execs!) but the whole exclusivity business makes no sense to me. I assume someone must’ve run the numbers, so what do I know, but the amount of people that are going to play Gears Of War: E-Day has now drastically dropped.
Forza Horizon 5 was massively popular on PlayStation 5 and I’m sure that’d be true of any decent Xbox game. Maybe the Reloaded remaster didn’t sell very well, and so they think E-Day won’t either, but it seems odd to me.
The only explanation that makes sense is what GC said about the game being basically sacrificed in order to please Xbox fans, which seems a crazy idea to me. Just think of all the people that worked on it and Clockwork Revolution and now they know their games aren’t going to be played by nearly as many people. I definitely don’t see it convincing anyone to buy an Xbox console.
If there’s another reason for it I can’t imagine but whatever it is, I think it’s going to be something they’ll do a U-turn on sooner rather than later.
Modul
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Enjoying the show
A pretty good Xbox Games Showcase, I thought. Although the games I was most interested in where nothing to do with Microsoft, like the new Spyro, Crazy Taxi, and a couple of those indie games. I am potentially interested in Fable, but I still don’t feel I’ve got much of a bead on what the game really is.
It looks a lot like Fable 2 in some of the shots but is the game really going to be as basic as that in terms of gameplay? I can see a lot of effort has gone into the graphics, which are really impressive, but I’m going to need more than that.
As for the exclusivity announcement… I don’t get it and I’m not sure anyone else does but I can’t say I particularly care about either of those games, so it doesn’t bother me. Maybe that’s the point, because I imagine hardcore Xbox fans are going to be the ones that are most into Gears Of War.
Martin
GC: Spyro is published by Activision, which is owned by Microsoft. Most of the indie games were Xbox console exclusives too.
Bad ending
I caught the highlights of Summer Game Fest on Saturday morning, but I thought it was pretty good. Resident Evil Veronica and Alien: Isolation 2 were the most interesting to me, but maybe that says more about my taste in games.
It seems a long time since we’ve had an actually good mic drop ending for one of these things though. Obviously Final Fantasy has its fans but the final party of a trilogy, that they said was going to be a trilogy the minute they started it, isn’t exactly a shocker. I don’t even know what the one for Xbox was supposed to be, Call Of Duty I guess?
State of Play probably had the best one in that it had God Of War Laufey but that had been leaked before. The best things to finish on are complete secrets. Although I guess they’re heard to come by nowadays.
Colbat84
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Content reaction
I watch a bit of Twitch and over the years I’ve noticed how streaming has become ever more integrated into the PR machine for gaming.
I think in context of the recent talk of info being out on social media being boring, it’s more because that’s where the biggest concentration of ears and eyes are.
The wildest demonstration of this came during the Summer Game Fest show. A long-time streamer, Maximilian Dood, was re-streaming it. He’s big into the fighting genre but also a big fan of Final Fantasy.
Directly after the show he received a call from a Squire Enix rep saying if he’s available they could have Final Fantasy 7 Director Naoki Hamaguchi (the guy on stage at Summer Game Fest revealing the third instalment) come over to his house in a hour or two and have a talk live on stream.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen high level representatives of a game show up on a stream. Sandfall Interactive co-founder and director for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was on an episode of Dropped Frames when that was released and blowing up.
Simundo
GC: That doesn’t explain why the initial announcements are often so dull though. If it was something more exciting, like Summer Game Fest, that’d give streamers something to react to. There’s a limit to how excited they can pretend to be by a one sentence tweet.
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Short list
After a bit of negativity in the gaming world recently, it’s time for something positive. What a great looking release list of games on the Microsoft store. Wow! There’s at least eight games on there that I’d happily put on my ‘wants’ page, with most likely a few more still to come in the next few months.
There’s also a big sale on at the moment. My pick would be Sniper Elite 5 Complete Edition (that’s the base game plus all the extra content) for the princely sum of 18 quid (23 quid on the PlayStation Store).
There’s never been a better time to be a gamer, in my opinion.
Paul C.
PS: Currently farming skill points on Forza Horizon 6. It’s a bit boring, but it’s got to be done; still better than watching all the rubbish that’s on t’ telly.
God of not sure
I was quite surprised we got such an extended look at the new God Of War. The last mainline game doesn’t seem that long ago, but it’s now been nearly four years which is almost the same period of time between Ragnarök and its predecessor.
I can’t say I’m totally sold on the focus shifting to Laufey. I’d like to point out at this point I’m not an incel and I’m more than happy to play games with female protagonist. I’m sure that from a narrative point of view things will be interesting and Deborah Ann Woll will do a great job. My main concern is that Kratos’ hammer is such a great weapon and the gameplay won’t be the same without it.
I think in some ways I’d have preferred if it was a spin-off rather than considered a mainline edition. Whilst I enjoyed Ragnarök I don’t think it lived up to God Of War (2018) and personally I think it overstayed its welcome and by the end of Ragnarök I was ready for it to be over. I think I’d have more enthusiasm for a 10-to-15-hour game rather than one double that length.
Although can’t say I’m totally sold, I imagine nearer to the time I’ll be caught up in the hype and no matter my thoughts I hope the game does well. Some of the chatter has been depressingly predictable and I’d love to see the game exceed expectations even if only to quiet down the annoying manchilds that complain every time a game has a female lead.
matc7884
GC: It was an axe, not a hammer. We agree with you on Ragnarök though and worry that since then the whole franchise has felt a bit directionless.
Darker, more mature
I was surprised to see the drastic change in graphics in Fable in the showcase last night.
Gone were the colourful style graphics shown in earlier versions of the game, to a very bleak reality of what Fable is now going to be graphics-wise. It’s unrecognisable from earlier versions shown.
TWO MACKS
Two good shows
What an awesome State of Play and Summer Game Fest 2026 recently. The solid confirmation of a Resident Evil Code: Veronica remake is perfect for me. I remember the original one being possibly more scary than Resi 3 and maybe the original, until the remake of the original was released. Resi 2 will always be one of the most chilling games ever, due to the music and sound effects being unmatched even now, and of course the level design.
It was the angled camera movements and the darkness of Code: Veronica that did it, especially the prison part in the beginning and those creepy Ashcroft twins in their manor being just the perfect amount of evil that’s required. Oh, and the return of Albert Wesker being all super-powered up with a bunch of skills like the instant speed flash dash, that would become his signature move, used throughout future games and the films.
The new God Of War game Laufey caused a storm but more to the fact that her partner throughout the game is a cube with a sword! Okay, it seems slightly Disney and not really in line with the usual God Of War theme, but it’s certainly got people curious but hopefully not putting them off.
Alien: Isolation 2 and Fable are also interesting but they have to be of the standard of Fable 2 and the first Alien game. A 007 First Light new mission teaser would be nice, as the game itself was pretty good and a very acceptable Bond game if I say so myself. But overall two very interesting shows. No new IPs, though, which is a shame. But the year is only halfway and plenty of time for that to change.
Alucard
GC: A new 007 First Light mission was teased during Summer Game Fest.
Inbox also-rans
The fact that it had the proper music in it gives me a lot of faith for that new Crazy Taxi game, it’s amazing how much difference something like that can make when it comes to nostalgia.
Grant
So I guess we’re never going to get a sequel to Gears 5, huh? They’ve gone back to calling it Gears Of War too, so it’s basically a reboot now.
Muntz
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