This Week on Xbox March 23 2018 Hero Image

This Week on Xbox: March 23, 2018

We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!

Sea of Thieves Now Available Worldwide on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs
So, this is pretty exciting, isn’t it? Launch day! Sea of Thieves is now available around the world for everyone to play. This has been an amazing journey for Rare as a studio and for our team who have delivered an entirely new type of multiplayer game that we’re incredibly proud of. We’re thrilled to be entering a new phase for Sea of Thieves and to see where this voyage takes us next. We’ve taken a unique approach with Sea of Thieves, from launching our Insider Programme in December 2016, where we invited our first 1,000 players into the first Technical Alpha, through a series of Alpha tests… Read more

Sea of Thieves: Museum of More Pirate
Like many of us on the team, we grew up as big fans of timeless classic movies like “The Goonies.” So it should come as no surprise that when our team went looking for the perfect person to play the lead role in the Sea of Thieves cinematic trailer, Sean Astin sat atop our list. Today, before the official release of Sea of Thieves, I am excited to world-premiere our launch cinematic trailer, featuring Sean Astin as the curator at the Museum of More Pirate. A man determined to share his lifelong passion by preserving exhibits and sharing tales of real explorers from the game who’ve already become the stuff of legend. Sean brings an appropriate shot of charm and enthusiasm to the role and… Read more

Photo of Azure booth at GDC

Highlights from Microsoft at GDC 2018
It was an energizing few days at the 2018 Game Developers Conference. We come to GDC every year to inspire game developers and gamers alike to achieve more, and this year we shared new innovations, from cloud gaming to PC graphics enhancements, for developers of all sizes. At Microsoft, we’re incredibly passionate about the gaming industry. With more than 35 years of history in gaming, we take our role as stewards of the industry very seriously and with much care. As the industry is growing to include more players, viewers and developers on a global scale, our vision is to support every modern facet of our medium to move it forward – from creation and distribution, to playing,… Read more

The GTA Online: Southern San Andreas Super Sport Series
This week marks the beginning of a full season of pulse-pounding new racing updates, a fleet of fresh vehicles and more with the GTA Online: Southern San Andreas Super Sport Series. The first of two new racing modes — an homage to Vice City’s classic Hotring mixed with the Cunning Stunts of GTA Online – is now available along with five new cars. Read on for the schedule ahead and stay tuned each week in GTA Online on the latest deals, discounts, and bonus GTA$ across businesses, adversary modes, stunt racing, and more. New Mode: Hotring Circuit There’s nothing more American than strapping yourself inside of the highly combustible turbo-charged death machine that is the… Read more

Tune in to the Forza Racing Championship 2018 Pre-Season Invitational on March 24 at 10 a.m. PDT
In advance of the Forza Racing Championship (ForzaRC) 2018 season start on April 2, we’re kicking things off with the ForzaRC 2018 Pre-Season Invitational presented by IMSA on March 24 in Seattle, WA, home of Turn 10 Studios. We’ve invited some of the best drivers and teams in the world to compete and set the stage for a season of exhilarating races. The Pre-Season Invitational will include traditional, Individual competition and for the first time in ForzaRC history, Team competition. The Pre-Season Invitational will showcase the best drivers in the world and give fans an early look at the drivers to follow in the upcoming ForzaRC 2018 season. Starting Saturday, March 24 at 10 a.m…. Read more

The Two Faces of Joker in Batman: The Enemy Within’s Season Finale
After four episodes of mounting tension and many months of planning, we’re now less than a week away from the fifth and final episode of Batman: The Enemy Within! The season finale will be available for download starting March 27 for both Xbox One and Windows 10, but for now, I want to share some behind-the-scenes insight into the creation of Telltale’s most ambitious piece of content ever. When we started story development on episode five, we had one major ambition: two distinct Jokers. One, a Joker who fashions himself a hero in Batman’s image but without his core values, and on the flip side, a Joker closer to the comic classic — a man who embraces torture and murder as a… Read more

Elder Scrolls Online Hero Image

Play The Elder Scrolls Online Free This Weekend with Xbox Live Gold
Great news, Xbox fans! It’s time to journey back into The Elder Scrolls Online for free this weekend with Xbox Live Gold. Get a taste of the adventure that awaits and prepare for the latest chapter that’s coming soon to ESO. For seven full days starting at 12:01 a.m. PST on Thursday, March 22 and running through to  11:59 p.m. PST on Tuesday, March 27, Xbox Live Gold Members can adventure through Tamriel, build and grow characters, conquer Delves and Dolmens, and unravel another great Elder Scrolls saga on Xbox One. Whether you’re looking to quest online with your friends, or just want to head back to Tamriel by yourself for another epic Elder Scrolls adventure, ESO provides you the… Read more

Titan Quest: Remastering a PC Classic for Xbox One
Releasing a PC classic like Titan Quest on modern console generation seems like an easy task, but in fact the way technologies and user expectations shift over time can mount to a herculean effort. There is no straightforward approach when it comes to such a “re-modernized” porting goal – since as such there isn’t really a thing like an “easy” port. Consequently we approached Titan Quest for consoles & handheld with the mental and infrastructural readiness that we would re-write a good amount of code, have the necessary tools ready for diverse applications to, for example, increase the… Read more

Street Fighter 30th Hero Image

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Arrives May 29, Pre-orders Get Ultra Street Fighter IV Free
First announced in December 2017, Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is officially coming on May 29 to Xbox One. Experience 12 iconic titles in the series that each have their place in making Street Fighter the legendary series it is today. This collection’s culmination of 30 years of Street Fighter history carries significant meaning to everyone at Capcom, and we hope to share that feeling with players all over the world. The 12 titles included in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection are Street… Read more

Adventuring into Gorogoa
Celebrating Gorogoa’s upcoming release on Xbox One, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the game’s place in the lineage of classic adventure games. After all, it’s a lineage I’m proud of. Nowadays, old-school adventures games are regarded with a mixture of nostalgia and gentle ridicule. Their puzzles were infamous for needless, Rube Goldberg complexity. The nouns and verbs in their mechanical language were often unclear. They seemed to actively fetishize absurd, counterintuitive uses for objects. Modern, more systemic puzzle games set out to fix those issues in part by removing the puzzles to a cleaner and more abstract realm where the verb set is unambiguous, the… Read more

GDC 2018 IDXbox Games Large

GDC: Celebrating the Success of Independent Developers with ID@Xbox
GDC is always one of my favorite game industry events of the year. Because it’s really developer focused, it has a totally different energy from others. It’s always a great time for the team here at ID@Xbox to talk developers from around the world, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, and we always take the opportunity to show off some amazing games that are coming through the program. This year at GDC, we’re highlighting more than 50 titles coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 – including the 18 new titles we announced last week – and many are coming to Xbox One as console launch exclusives, including Black Desert, Below, and Trailmakers. As ID@Xbox heads into its… Read more

What’s New in Circuit Breakers?
Circuit Breakers debuted on Xbox One last August, but that hasn’t stopped us working to release a massive free content update – in fact, it’s out now! If you’ve yet to hear about Circuit Breakers, it’s a delightfully nostalgic twin-stick shooter – a homage to the arcade era — with up to six-player local co-op on Xbox One. From the easy-to-get grips with controls, to the addictive ‘just one more…’ gameplay, Circuit Breakers takes you back in time. Out today is a massive new content update for Circuit Breakers that adds new playable characters, deadly weapons, a game mode, power ups and more – and it’s entirely free to all Circuit Breakers owners. The headline feature for this… Read more

RBI Baseball 18 Screenshot

It’s a Whole New Ballgame – R.B.I. Baseball 18 Releases Today on Xbox One
Opening Day is around the corner for your favorite MLB teams and players. Today, however, represents an early Opening Day as your season officially opens with our release of R.B.I. Baseball 18. With more gameplay modes, a brand-new look, and the same easy-to-play fun, we think R.B.I. Baseball 18 takes a huge leap forward in our most significant update since the franchise was revived in 2014. One of the largest undertakings for our internal dev team was the creation of an all-new Franchise Mode. It’s the most requested feature from your feedback on previous versions of the game, so we’re excited to give you complete control of your favorite MLB team by making trades, signing free… Read more