By: Andrew Lindeman

X018 was an Xbox fan event held in Mexico City over the weekend. There was a press conference held with some new trailers, small updates, and developer interviews. This is the important news that came out of it.

The most important announcement Microsoft made in the whole show was the acquisition of two development studios,Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment. Both of these studios are well known for their RPG games. Obsidian originally worked on 3rd person action rpg series that were usually sequels to critically acclaimed games that some argued they were better than. In more recent years, they have been creating games in the crpg style, with usually much more stereotypical fantasy settings and an isometric view on the world. Some of the more important titles they have worked on include Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the Pillars of Eternity series. inXile Entertainment have become another crpg powerhouse, creating continuations of old classic early 90’s games after years of making mostly mobile games. Their big hits include Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and The Bard’s Tale 4: Barrows Deep.

These two studios make the sixth and seventh studios that Microsoft has purchased this year, which has more than doubled the five in-house studios they had at the beginning of the year. The effect of all of these development teams won’t be seen right away, as games take years to make, but when the next Xbox system comes out, there will now be two more exclusive studios, which makes for a more interesting and well rounded lineup then the current generation, which has seen only a few exclusives outside of the usual Halo, Gears of War, and Forza series.

Only one new game was announced today, and that game is Void Bastards. It will be a console launch exclusive. A mixture of strategy and shooter, players choose between prisoners to send on missions to loot, craft weapons, and fight other ships as they make their way through the Sargassi Nebula. From the trailer, it seems to be a rogue lite, where you lose what you had until you can collect it again off your old character.

Crackdown 3 finally has an official release date, after being delayed multiple times and being announced way too early at E3 2014. That date is February 15th 2019. As with all Xbox exclusives, Crackdown 3 will release day-and-date on Game Pass, which I will always suggest since you get access to over a hundred games for ten dollars a month. Crackdown is a game about becoming an overpowered Agent to take down crime in a futuristic  city that you can cause a whole lot of destruction in. Along with the date, a five versus five multiplayer mode was announced, and the original Xbox 360 game Crackdown is available for free for the month.

Sea of Thieves, the cartoon like pirate simulator released in February this year, is getting a multiplayer mode called The Arena sometime in early 2019. The Arena has crews competing to find treasure and complete bounties.

Finally, to continue my push for people to realize they should have Game Pass, Xbox announced 16 new games for Game Pass, some of which come out the first day you could buy them while others you might have missed in recent years. I’ll list them below.

• Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PubG)
• Ori and the Blind Forest
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Thief of Thief Season 1
• Void Bastards
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• Kingdom: Two Crowns
• Aftercharge
• Supermarket Shriek
• Mutant: Year Zero
• Pathologic 2
• Secret Neighbor
• The Good Life
• Agents of Mayhem
• MXGP3
• Thomas was Alone

My email is af-lindeman@wiu.edu. Hit me up if you have any video game related questions or if you are just looking for someone to game with. Playing a lot of Fortnite on PS4 and a menagerie of single player games on all my consoles.