Everything you need to know for launch.

Xbox is about to close out 2024 with an absolutely massive release - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is almost here! Yep, as early as next week, Xbox players can go hands on with this brand-new Indiana Jones adventure.

Before this swings onto Xbox and PC, we're going to detail everything you need to know about the game's upcoming launch - including how to get early access if you'd like to experience Indiana Jones and the Great Circle ASAP!

Read the full article on purexbox.com

Possibly as soon as next week.

We've been very intrigued by The Thing: Remastered ever since it was announced for Xbox back in the summer, and considering it's always been planned for a 2024 release, we assume we'll be getting it very soon indeed.

There might actually be a date set in stone as well. Xbox Wire is reporting today that Thursday, December 5th is the release date for The Thing: Remastered, even though a date hasn't been announced by the publisher as of yet.

Read the full article on purexbox.com

ORIGINAL STORY 11am UK: Microsoft says its plans to let users buy and play games directly via the Xbox app on Android are being held up by a new legal issue.

Writing on social media, Xbox chief Sarah Bond blamed the hold-up on "a temporary administrative stay recently granted by the courts".

Microsoft had previously said it would launch the functionality before the end of the month.

"At Xbox, we want to offer players more choice on how and where they play, including being able to play and buy games directly from the Xbox app," Bond wrote. "I recently shared our ambition to unlock these features first with the Google Play Store on Android devices in the US while other app stores adapt to meet consumer demand.

"Due to a temporary administrative stay recently granted by the courts, we are currently unable to launch these features as planned. Our team has the functionality built and ready to go live as soon as the court makes a final decision. We are eager to launch and give more choice and flexibility to players."

The legal issue in question appears to be Google's 16th October appeal against changes to Android and its Google Play store ordered as a result of the Google vs Epic Games lawsuit.

Epic Games successfully argued that Google operated an illegal monopoly via its smartphone app store. Last month, a judge ruled that Google would now have to allow third-party storefront apps in the US next year other than the Google Play Store, and that Android users be able to pay via alternate means, rather than just Google Play Billing.

Google said it would appeal the decision as it appeared to contradict the ruling of Epic's less-successful Apple trial, that because Apple existed it did not have a monopoly, and because the changes would make Android less safe and secure for users.

Eurogamer has contacted Google for more.

Separately, Microsoft is also working on its own web-based Xbox mobile game store, which was set to launch in the summer. In August the company stated testing had begun, but it's still unclear when it will properly launch.

UPDATE 4.30pm UK: Google has issued a response to Microsoft's suggestion it is being blocked from giving users more choice by offering games to buy and play within its Xbox app - and Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney has subsequently chipped in to call that statement "deceitful".

In a statement sent to Eurogamer, a Google spokesperson said:

"Microsoft has always been able to offer their Android users the ability to play and purchase Xbox games directly from their app - they've simply chosen not to. The Court's order, and rush to force its implementation, threaten Google Play's ability to provide a safe and secure experience. Microsoft, like Epic, are ignoring these very real security concerns. We remain focused on supporting an ecosystem that works for everyone, not just two of the largest game companies."

That mention of Epic Games brought Sweeney to social media to respond:

"Google's statement is deceitful. Shame on them. They well know that the 30 percent cut they demand is far more than all of the profit from game streaming. They know this because they blew hundreds of millions of dollars building the failed Stadia game business themselves."

Grab your sword and shield as we dive into another Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Livestream on November 19th at 9am PT. Knowing that we have a little more time to dig into the title before it launches, the team is looking to update fans on more information about the game launching in 2025. If you can’t wait that long to get into battle, this stream is for you.

You can grab right now ahead of release.

You might consider the biggest Xbox releases this week to be Stalker 2 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, but don't forget the other massive one - free-to-play sensation Genshin Impact arrives on Wednesday, November 20th.

If you want to be ready to go on Wednesday, you can actually preload Genshin Impact on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S right now, and you might be surprised to learn that it's over 100GB! Here's what some Xbox fans have been saying...

The big day is almost here!

After a bunch of delays, Stalker 2 is turning out to be one of the most anticipated Xbox Game Pass titles for the end of 2024 - and the good news is that its release date is right around the corner!

So, ahead of that launch, we're going to tell you everything you need to know about Stalker 2 and its Xbox Game Pass release. This is going to be a huge experience on Xbox and PC, so it's probably worth clearing your calendar — and a big chunk of SSD space — before getting stuck in.

I've been having some trouble unlocking achievements in 360 games, and having achievements say they are unlocked already if I haven't played the game. But the achievements don't actually count towards my gamerscore or achievements unlocked. I talked to Xbox support chat and this is what they told me. Anyone else having this issue? It's been going on about a year now for me.

Oftentimes, video games are delayed because the project hasn't fully come together, riddled with performance issues or game-breaking bugs. But that's not the case with Avowed, according to Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer. He pushed back Obsidian's upcoming RPG because this holiday season was too crowded for the company.

Speaking with Game File (via VGC), Spencer discussed Avowed's delay to February, noting Xbox currently has the benefit of a packed holiday season with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hate, and next month's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (not to mention Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024). This allowed Xbox to space out releases and give Avowed its own time to shine next year.

"We didn't move it because Obsidian needed the time," Spencer said. "They'll use the time."

Ahead of the holiday season, and presumably to help drive sign-ups to Game Pass, Microsoft has rolled out a new ad campaign called "This Is An Xbox." The basic takeaway is that, as Microsoft has been saying for years, you don't have to buy an Xbox to play Xbox. That's because Xbox games are available across a variety of devices these days as part of Microsoft's new strategy to gain marketshare. Microsoft is, of course, is in third place against PlayStation and Nintendo.

Microsoft is going big for this ad campaign, with visuals set to appear in places like San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, London, New York, and Berlin. Microsoft also commissioned a live-action trailer featuring the song "The Choice Is Yours" by Black Sheep, which is rather fitting.

Additionally, Microsoft partnered with companies like Samsung, Crocs, Porsche, and The Happy Egg for branding takeovers. The ads first display a product, say, a pair of Crocs, with the message "This is a pair of Crocs," and the next page shows an Xbox and says, "This is an Xbox."

Staff who are members of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA are on a one-day strike to call out Microsoft for an alleged lack of progress at the bargaining table over remote work and for allegedly unilaterally outsourcing quality assurance work without bargaining with the union.

In January 2023, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA formed the first video game studio union at Microsoft, representing over 300 quality assurance workers in Maryland and Texas. Today's strike takes place at four ZeniMax locations across Maryland and Texas, with workers set to return to their desks tomorrow, November 14.

A Microsoft spokesperson told IGN, "We respect our employees’ rights to express their point of view as they have done today. We will continue to listen and address their concerns at the bargaining table."

ZeniMax is the umbrella organization that includes The Elder Scrolls and Fallout maker Bethesda and Doom developer id Software, among other studios. It also owns Indiana Jones and the Great Circle developer MachineGames and Marvel's Blade developer Arkane Lyon.

Last month, Communications Workers of America Union (CWA) filed an unfair labor practice charge against ZeniMax for contracting out work without notification. ZeniMax Workers United-CWA members have raised concerns that ZeniMax’s recent unilateral decision to outsource quality assurance work threatens job security amid record layoffs across the video game industry.

The strike comes hot on the heels of Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer's insistence that “the Xbox business has never been more healthy.”

After splashing out $69 billion on Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard last year, Microsoft has cut more than 2,500 jobs from its gaming business and closed three ZeniMax studios. Sales of Xbox Series X and S continue to plummet, and Game Pass subscriber numbers are flat, although Microsoft said it enjoyed a record bump from the recent day one launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Spencer said 2025 is looking brighter for Microsoft’s gaming effort. “The Xbox business has never been more healthy,” he said, citing growth in cloud and PC gaming as well as console usage. “The business is performing right now, and I think that means a more healthy future for hardware and the games we build.”

Spencer is even optimistic about the growth of mobile games, despite cutting staff from the teams behind the underperforming Call of Duty Warzone Mobile and Warcraft Rumble. “I feel pretty good about where this industry is going,’’ he said. “To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles.”

Spencer is of course under pressure to deliver following the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and is in the middle of a big multiplatform push that may end up seeing Halo launch on PlayStation.

“We run a business,” Spencer said in August. “It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company. Because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.

“So I look at this, how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow, on console, on PC, and on cloud. It’s just going to be a strategy that works for us.”

Update: This story has been updated with a statement from Microsoft.

Baldur’s Gate 3’s romance system is one of the game’s most famous and popular features, and while Avowed’s choice not to have a romance system of its own may raise a few eyebrows, director Carrie Patel expressed her confidence during an interview at EGX that the game is better off without one.

The latest RPG from the storied Obsidian Entertainment, taking place in the same universe as its Pillars of Eternity series, Avowed is currently on course to release early next year. While excitement for the game is high, comparisons are already being drawn between it and Larian Studios' triumphant 2023 hit, Avowed is set to follow its own path, focusing on only four well-written companions, with the lack of romance being key to how players will experience their stories.

“It’s a ton of work”, Patel notes, on romance systems. “You want to make sure you do it right. And part of that is also you want to make sure that a player who opts not to romance but still wants to have a very deep relationship with those companions gets to have just as thorough and meaningful an experience on a friendship or ally path as [if] they went on a romance path. And so we felt that we could best tell our companions' stories and our players' relationships with them without the romance option”

For the Avowed team, ensuring that all of their companions are equally fleshed out, and their stories can be experienced equally by all players is key to the game’s story, and by extension, key to players’ experiences. “With the four companions we wanted them to all have key roles in the story, different party roles, different personalities, and ways that they compliment each other and let them tell the story of the Living Lands to the player”, Patel explains.

The lack of a romance system is particularly important with regards to one companion, who Patel explains is in a relationship, something which is key to their development over the course of the game. “[It] isn't a story that I think you often get to see in a lot of games with a party member who's travelling with you”, she begins “and so one thing players will really get to explore with here is kind of how she navigates having her heart in one place, while knowing that she really needs to be here”.

At the end of the day, Avowed and Baldur’s Gate 3 are, of course, different games, and while Patel accepts that romance “works very well in some games”, that is not necessarily the case with Avowed. Though comparisons between the RPGs are unlikely to go away anytime soon, Patel remains confident that Avowed’s quality will inevitably do the talking. “Players will always respond well to a really good character.”