It was solid. I would give it a B-. Definitely not the best show ever but blew Sony's GaaS slop out the water.
The decision to give Starfield its own showcase was an excellent one. I was never quite sold on it before, but that showcase propelled it to my most hyped game. It's probably the most ambitious game i've ever seen. 1000 fucking planets, at that level of fidelity, with an RPG laid over the top. They needed to give the game some breathing room and this did the job.
Fable also looked surprisingly great. Looks to have kept the British humor intact and Richard Ayoade starring in the trailer was a joy. Main character is a bit fugly but the game likely has some sort of character creator to correct that. On the flipside of Fable and Starfield impressing, Avowed looked dogshit. Big letdown after the original CGI trailer 3 years ago. Obsidian appear to be one of the more disappointing acquisitions made by MS.
I was also not at all sold on inXile's game, Clockwork Revolution. It looks like a b-grade BioShock Infinite. Compulsion's game, South of Midnight, has a more interesting style, but there was no gameplay shown so I have absolutely no idea what it's actually going to be. Criticism is often directed at reveal trailers being CGI or just showing cinematics, and this was reminiscent of that. Hellblade II's trailer was another i'd level that complaint at, and in fact its previous trailer arguably showed more.
On to the good parts of the conference: Forza Motorsport looked a lot more polished than the last time I saw it. I'm glad they finally nailed down a release date this year. Wasn't expecting Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 to be shown but I suppose that is part of the '10 year cycle' Asobo Studio promised for MSFS. Looks like it has a lot more 'game' than MSFS 2020, which while a technical marvel did get a little boring after a few weeks. A couple of surprises too like Still Wakes the Deep's unique oil rig horror.
The Japanese support was the real highlight. MS seem to just know exactly what I look for from JP games. The Persona 3 remake was leaked beforehand, but it's not really fair to take that away from the conference. People would've lost their shit if that announcement went down as intended. Path of the Goddess from Capcom had some serious Onimusha / Otogi vibes and I am there for it. Both of these are coming to Game Pass day one which is even more impressive. The real megaton (Megaten?) though was Metaphor: ReFantazio aka Project Re:Fantasy finally being revealed and looking spectacular. I'm wondering if MS have locked down exclusivity for it as so far only Xbox + PC have been announced.
In terms of how the showcase salvages 2023 for Xbox, the conference both did and didn't do much to alleviate the feeling that this year is a lost cause. I genuinely thought that Hellblade II would make it this year and its absence leaves just Starfield and Forza as the heavy hitters. The 2023 lineup feels very anemic on paper, but then again Starfield does look absolutely jaw dropping, and Sony in comparison only really have Final Fantasy 16 and Spider-Man 2. Late 2023 is looking like an off-season for every console right now.
I also would've liked to have seen updates on Perfect Dark, Indiana Jones, whatever Rare and The Coalition have been up to, and State of Decay 3, which have all been MIA for several years now. Perhaps MS did not want to blow their load all at once after they saw Sony's misstep.
