FEBRUARY 2020
THE MAGAZINE FOR ALL THINGS XBOX
ONLY ON XBOX! Halo Infinite Bleeding Edge Hellblade II Grounded Everwild & more!
HOT NEW GAMES!
R E V E A L E D!
XBOX
SERIES X ALL THE LAUNCH GAMES PLUS THE 100 HOTTEST XBOX GAMES OF 2020!
Marvel’s Avengers Cyberpunk 2077 Resident Evil 3 Dying Light 2 Overwatch 2 & more!
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THE X FACTOR
Next-gen gets some X appeal Microsoft finally unveils Xbox Series X for the first time, with its next-gen console offering 8K gaming and four times the power of Xbox One X
UNITED WE STAND Xbox Series X lets you place multiple games on standby to allow you to switch between titles much more quickly. Xbox partner director of program management Jason Roland confirmed the feature to GameSpot. “It’s about ensuring there’s less waiting and more time playing… that’s what we want to do with the consoles and services we have.”
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Sayonara, Scarlett. Never again will we have to call the next Xbox by its former codename. Instead, we can finally refer to Microsoft’s incredibly powerful new console by its actual name… hello, Xbox Series X! Microsoft wowed the world during last month’s Game Awards, with a truly startling hardware reveal. Still scheduled for a Holiday 2020 release, Xbox Series X is the boldest, beefiest console the Redmond firm has ever made. Just look at it… it’s like a little PC! It’s also comfortably the most powerful system in Microsoft’s history. “Xbox Series X will be our fastest, most powerful console ever and set a new bar for performance, speed and compatibility, allowing you to bring your gaming legacy, thousands of games from three generations and more forward with you,” wrote head of Xbox Phil Spencer on the Xbox Wire. The sheer horsepower Xbox Series X has under the hood should lead to experiences we could only imagine on Xbox One. “Its industrial design enables us to deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way,” says Spencer. Oh, and if you’re a little worried about Series X’s rather ‘large and in charge’ vertical profile, and whether it’ll actually fit inside your TV cabinet, fret not. “We designed Xbox Series X to support vertical and horizontal orientation,” reveals Spencer. And breathe.
Spencer also confirmed various hardware rumours that have been swirling around for months. Xbox Series X will indeed have that much-discussed AMD Zen 2 CPU, and this next-gen RDNA processing architecture – try not to get too hot and bothered now – will let the killer console deliver a level of visual fidelity we’ve never seen before, something Spencer elaborates on. “From a technical standpoint, this will manifest as world-class visuals in 4K at 60fps, with the possibility of up to 120fps, including support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), and 8K capability.” That’s right: eight-flippin’-K. We’re not sure our eyes are physically capable of seeing that many polygons, but our peepers are still hugely excited.
Hell’s bells
While cold hard numbers are great and all, the merest glimpse at the recently announced Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is worth more than all the words. If you’ve not seen the trailer for Ninja Theory’s tormented sequel, free up two minutes and seven seconds of time, put down the mag briefly, and prepare to witness scarcely believable graphics. Watched it yet? Wonderful. Captured from in-engine footage running on Series X, if the final game delivers the kind of damn near photoreal environments the trailer hints at, we could be looking at the best looking videogame ever made. Hold us.
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2020
PREVIEW
Halo INFINITE
RIGHT Chief gets woken from cryosleep for the 17,000th time in Infinite.
THE CHIEF TAKES AIM AT SERIES X ETA HOLIDAY 2020 PUBLISHER XBOX GAME STUDIOS DEVELOPER 343 INDUSTRIES
f you’re currently saving all your pennies for an Xbox Series X, it’s almost certainly for this shooter. Acting as a soft reboot, Microsoft hopes Master Chief’s latest adventure will help it sell a shedload of next-gen consoles. With the weight of winning back fans after Halo 5: Guardians’ misfiring campaign, and the responsibility of being the star of the next Xbox’s launch lineup, 343 Industries has a lot of shooty boxes to tick. No pressure, guys. Despite being less than a year away, Halo Infinite is still shrouded in mystery. Concrete plot and gameplay details are virtually nonexistent. One of the only firm bits of info we have? 343 is building Chief’s latest FPS using the next-gen Slipspace engine. Regardless of whether you plan to play at 1080p on Xbox One S or 4K on that shiny new Series X, Infinite will be the most technologically advanced Halo ever. While the tech powering 343’s latest shooter is future-facing, thematically the game takes cues from Halo’s past to help define the look of Master Chief. In a nod to Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, John-117’s new suit heavily recalls his Mjolnir Mark IV armour. His helmet also looks retro, with a design that’s
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BOTTOM LEFT Our brief glimpse at the Slipspace engine almost blew our eyes up, we can’t wait for the final release.
reminiscent of Halo 2’s Mjolnir Mark IV. Looking good, Chiefy baby. It also sounds like 343 Industries wants to lean on the franchise’s best moments to help shape a less divisive story than Halo 5’s campaign. Writing on Halo Waypoint, studio head Bonnie Ross is keen to take pointers from Chief’s past. “It draws significant inspiration from the most iconic and historic parts of the Halo franchise and your feedback, all while modernising and taking advantage of the full power of the Xbox One family. The new Master Chief helmet directly showcases our new art style.” Sensibly, 343 is doubling down on the Chief after Halo 5 cut his screen time. Unlike its predecessor, big John is the sole focus of Infinite, with a plot that’s likely to focus on the warrior’s fractured relationship with a now megalomaniacal Cortana. Let’s not forget the unstable AI tried to use those bionic buggers the Guardians to help enforce a universe-wide disarmament plan at the end of the last game. Or, in more basic terms, ‘Operation: Kill All The Folk To Ensure
Peace’. Yeah, Cortana and Chief have a lot of issues to work through. There could also be more focus on the series’ titular rings this time out. While the legendary Forerunner structures have taken a bit of a back seat in 343’s Halo titles, the cliffhanger from Halo 5 showed Cortana booting up a new Halo structure. Even the most casual of Master Chief fan knows that never leads to anything good. In less cataclysmic news, at least Infinite’s voice cast is being bolstered by a huggable new four-legged addition. While we’re pumped Steve Downes is lending his velvety larynx to Master Chief once again, we’re even more excited about the presence of Gyoza: 343’s team pug and the cutest member of the shooter’s cast. The studio has already revealed the pooch’s grunts and whines are being used to bring certain enemies to life. Halo Infinite is going to be the most visually spectacular of all Series X’s launch titles. Seeing as it’s been over four years since we last stepped into Chief’s boots, we are beyond ready for the intergalactic icon’s return. n
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LEFT E3 2019’s trailer showed Chief teaming up with an adrift UNSC pilot. BOTTOM Multiplayer details are still MIA, but we’re hoping Warzone is back.
“Thematically the game takes cues from Halo’s past to help define the look of Master Chief”
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SLIP SHAPE Infinite’s Slipspace Engine is going to have some graphics. Hell, it’ll probably have all of them. 343 has worked on the new tech for years, and, judging from the shooter’s first trailer, said tech is exceedingly good at rendering grass. Slipspace also contains parts of the existing Blam! engine, while its name is derived from Halo’s in-game FTL mode of transport.
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INTERVIEW
Before he got into games, Booty earned a Master Of Fine Arts in Computer Engineering at Purdue University
Matt Booty Age of Booty AS XBOX ENTERS ITS MOST IMPORTANT YEAR FOR A DECADE, WE SIT DOWN WITH HEAD OF MICROSOFT STUDIOS MATT BOOTY TO CHAT ABOUT THE NEXTGEN XBOX, HOW MUCH LIFE THE XBOX ONE STILL HAS LEFT AND WHY GAME PASS IS CHANGING THE INDUSTRY DAVE MEIKLEHAM / JOSH WEST
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INVESTIGAT ES
THE HISTORY OF HORROR GAMES ON XBOX Horror games and Team Green consoles make the best of (petrified) bedfellows. Be it Manhunt’s demented stalking, FEAR’s horrifying little girl, or the forthcoming Resident Evil 3 remake’s newly terrifying Nemesis, we run you through Xbox’s history with survival horror DAVE MEIKLEHAM /CHRIS BURKE
We all love a good Xbox bump in the night. Horror games have been chilling and thrilling fans of Microsoft consoles for almost 20 years, with an enduring appeal like few other genres. After all, who doesn’t love being scared silly? Whether being creeped out by the
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wails of coffin-dodging cops in last year’s Resident Evil 2 remake or fretting over Silent Hill 2’s gnawing brand of psychological dread, the history of survival horror on Xbox is bloody terrifying. Join us as we look back on it… then immediately hold us.
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