Featured Image Credit: Xbox
We're quickly approaching the festival season, with Xbox kicking us off with their Games Showcase that will highlight some of the biggest upcoming titles.
But already, the alarm bells are ringing in the ears of Xbox fans after Microsoft revealed two huge omissions from the June 7 showreel.
The first was that Fable 4 had fallen victim to the looming Grand Theft Auto monster, announcing a delay to ensure that the fantasy RPG can have the 'dedicated moment it deserves.'
That left GTA VI to be joined by a party of shooters and sci-fi titles, which will likely be joined by a few surprise additions.
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But that's it. Strictly games.
The upcoming Project Helix, the next-gen Xbox console, will be nowhere near the showcase as the mystery hardware loses even more ground to the PS6 and Steam Machine.
Ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase, which is set to give us a first taste of upcoming giants like Clockwork Revolution, Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty appeared on an official Microsoft podcast to begin hyping up the event.
However, it was really a platform for Booty to dampen the Xbox fans' spirit, dropping the Fable bomb before ruling out any hope of seeing Project Helix.
"We really want to focus on the teams and on the games, and this is not going to be a place where we're going to talk strategy, broadly," he said.
"There are certainly some strategic things that are out there and things we want to bring clarity to, but the focus here is on the games. For the long term, we want to make the right decisions, not fast decisions.
"I can also say that there won't be Helix news, so Helix will not be in this Showcase. Again, we want to get everything about that right."
The news was met with confirmation that Xbox will be championing other competitor platforms this year, after controversially leaving PlayStation and PC launchers out of last year's reel, creating confusion over console exclusivities.
Xbox has been moving in a positive direction under new CEO Asha Sharma, who has already made wholesale changes to the Game Pass and has begun hinting towards new Helix updates soon.
However, fans aren't getting their hopes up and predict that it could still be three years off.
"Highly unlikely that Helix will release next year if alpha consoles start going out in the early months of 2027," one fan said on Reddit.
"It’s more likely that it would release mid or late 2028, possibly even early 2029. This gives them time to ramp up production and also give devs time to develop launch titles."
Others marvelled at the news, glad that the next-gen Xbox console is still a long way off.
"Maybe I’m just getting old, or graphics are hitting diminishing returns, but I’d be perfectly happy with Helix releasing 2028 at the absolute earliest. I really have no desire to move on from my XSX at this time," a second fan said.
A third added, "We don’t need Helix. Let’s wait until the current gen actually starts dropping in price before we begin talking about a more expensive console
While Xbox die-hards will be happy to stick with the Series X/S for the meantime, not needing to fork out for an outrageously priced console, it does leave the door ajar for the PlayStation 6 and Steam Machine to get in first and capitalise on games like GTA VI.
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