11 Bit Studios, the developer behind the acclaimed likes of Frostpunk and This War of Mine, has unveiled its latest project, sci-fi survival adventure The Alters.

Unfortunately, it's early days as far as specifics go, with the bulk of 11 Bit's reveal taking the form of a cinematic trailer - one immediately bringing Duncan Jones' celebrated sci-fi movie Moon to mind. You see, in The Alters, players take on the role of Jan, a space builder stranded on a distant planet, ensconced in a roving wheel-like base, with a bunch of alternative versions of himself known as Alters. Ultimately, the goal is to stay alive long enough to find a way back home by creating new Alters, each of who have different skills essential for survival.

"The Alters is a game about life-changing moments," explains 11 Bit's new Steam page. "Those binary decisions that happen in nanoseconds, but have influence over your entire life. It is about looking into yourself, into your past, and discovering that you are who you are as a sum of those numerous choices. And when you do that a fundamental question arises: WHAT IF...?".

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Were you hoping to hear something about Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 tonight? Well, Obsidian have announced manuscriptacular medieval murder-mystery adventure Pentiment at today’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase instead. This one at least has a firm-ish release date of November attached, though, and looks very pretty. Catch yourself up with the reveal by watching the trailer below.

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The Alters wants you to think about how small choices can change the type of person you are, like a big science fiction Sliding Doors. Only, since it's the new game from the developers of Frostpunk and This War Of Mine, I'm guessing the stakes are higher than whether Gywneth Paltrow gets it together with John Hannah. For one, you're creating alternatve versions of yourself in order to survive on a rickety base rolling across an alien world.

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House Flipper captured the minds of all of us who watched Homes Under The Hammer and knew in our hearts that we were unlikely to be able to buy a house to live in, let alone spare houses to flip and sell at a profit. Now the publishers Frozen Forge are back with The Constructors, revealed at the PC Gaming Show. The Constructors is a simulation game allowing you to climb up another rung on the parasite ladder (following on from last year's landlord sim The Tenants, by the same devs Ancient Forge Studio) as you own a constuction company, and build and design housing estates.

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Klei Entertainment, the makers of an unlikely number of good games including Don't Starve and Mark Of The Ninja, today announced their next. Rotwood is its name, and cartoony dungeon-crawling is the game. Up to four players can join together for online hack 'n' slash action, or you can play it on your lonesome if you'd rather. Here, check out the announcement trailer below.

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11 Bit Studios, the developer behind This War of Mine, Frostpunk, and Children of Morta, is making something new and a bit more surreal. The Alters is a sci-fi adventure where one man trying to survive and get home from a mission that's gone wrong finds all the help he needs in himself. Or rather, himselves.

Jan Dolski, the main character, turns to The Alters, or alternate versions of himself that differ from him in ways that will help them all survive. The Alters each have different skills and character traits, so even though they all look like Jan, they'll fill specific roles in the mission to get home. The trailer shows Jan and The Alters' ship, a giant wheel-like craft with a series of shipping container units held together at the center.

During the presentation, 11 Bit Studios' Lead Artist Tomasz Kisikewicz says the game has aspects of a psychological thriller, with a dash of horror, but also obviously deals with surrealism. He also says this lands in a "classic sci-fi" story by taking a relatable topic and applying these fictional science solutions like creating alternate selves, but the gameplay is contemporary with a focus on system design and non-linear gameplay. It's designed for players to create their own stories.

The PC Gaming Show debuted an extended look at gameplay for a Sci-fi thriller from Starward Industries, The Invincible. What was shown is compelling, and it may be an understatement to say, but this game looks stunning.

The demo begins from the perspective of Yasna, a hazmat-suited explorer as she ventures into a dusty and irradiated facility. Her cohort Novik supports her on comms as she delves deeper into the mysterious local. She soon comes across a deactivated Antimatter cannon and later a robot looping a task it's been engaged in for who knows how long. The tech of The Invincible is retro-futuristic, which gives the rundown facility and gadgets Yasna uses a lot of character and charm. Yasna pulls out a handheld tracker with a field of tiny lights and uses it to discover a body buried in the sands beneath her feet, confirming this place isn't at all safe. Then, the antimatter cannon surges to life, takes aim, and blows the robot worker away with a spectacular beam of particles before turning its sights dead on our protagonist.

I'm not usually one for slow-paced first-person narrative games, but this look at The Invincible had me on the edge of my seat, and I can't wait to see more. The Invincible is coming sometime in 2023 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Fairytale action-adventure Ravenlok was revealed at today’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, hailing from Echo Generation devs Cococucumber. Ravenlok is clearly channelling Alice In Wonderland a fair bit, and Cococucumber do refer to it as a “fairytale reimagining”. It’s due out sometime in 2023. Watch the mushroom-laden trailer below.

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We all remember 2019's A Plague Tale: Innocence, the inspiration for the famous phrase "rat's entertainment!" that you still hear shouted in music halls up and down the country. The blend of action-adventure, stealth and seething hordes of rats is getting a sequel later this year, taking our miserable medieval tots Amicia and Hugo to the south of France for A Plague Tale: Requiem. In a gameplay trailer shown at the Xthesda showcase tonight we saw that Amicia is struggling with whether or not she should kill the heck out of soldiers, or try to stealth on by.

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UPDATE 14/6/22: Team Ninja's newly-announced Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will also come to PlayStation 4 and PS5.

The project was initially revealed as coming to PC and Xbox during this weekend's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, as well as to Xbox Game Pass on day one, at some point in 2023.

ORIGINAL STORY 12/6/22: Announced during tonight's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a new project from Team Ninja which will arrive in early 2023 and launch for PC and Xbox Game Pass.

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Today, during Microsoft’s large Xbox and Bethesda video game showcase event, well-known game director and cinema lover Hideo Kojima appeared to announce he’s working with Xbox on his next game, and uh...hmmm...

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Today, Xbox and Bethesda hosted its Summer Game Fest showcase, providing new looks and reveals about plenty of upcoming games.

Below you can check out all the news and trailer showcased at the 2022 Xbox and Bethesda Summer Game Fest presentation.

Redfall

Xbox & Bethesda Showcase 2022

Redfall is an open-world, single-player and co-op FPS from Arkane Austin, the award-winning team behind Prey and Dishonored. Continuing Arkane’s legacy of carefully crafted worlds and immersive sims, Redfall brings the studio’s signature gameplay to this story-driven action shooter.

Redfall arrives on Xbox, PC, and Cloud in 2023.

Bethesda today gave a first look at Starfield in motion with the "official gameplay reveal" for their upcoming interstellar RPG. It does indeed look like Fallout 4 with spaceships, though a little less colourful than Fallout 4. Watch the 15-minute presentation here below.

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Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Portable are coming to PC via Xbox Game Pass, with Persona 5 Royal due to arrive this October. Persona 4 Golden, which is already available on PC via Steam, is also coming to Game Pass. This is exceptionally good news for fans of stylish, urban fantasy JRPGs about hanging with friends, going to school and getting sucked into supernatural adventures.

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More footage of online survival sequel Ark 2 was shown off at today’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, and we got to see another glimpse at the bizarre sight of Vin Diesel riding a dinosaur. Who does he think he is, Chris Pratt? Gawp in awe at the Unreal Engine 5 trailer below and try not to remember Babylon A.D. or any of the pants Riddick movies, I dare you.

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Koei Tecmo and Ninja Gaiden developer Team Ninja are developing a new, original action game. Called Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, the game debuted at Microsoft and Bethesda's 2022 showcase stream.

The game is set in a fantastical rendition of Three Kingdoms-era China, where the Han dynasty is plagued by demons and monsters. Players control a nameless militia soldier fighting for survival amidst the chaos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7FqH_jrYFg
 
The player is apparently capable of acrobatic martial arts techniques. According to an NPC, they're possessed of "The Eternal Elixir Field," some form of supernatural power. With it, they can go toe-to-toe with demonically empowered foes. One such foe even consumes an item of some sort, transforming into a giant demon. The trailer closed on a shot of the protagonist encountering a man who is likely Lu Bu, famed hero of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms saga.

The Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty trailer itself was fully cinematic and didn't give much hint as to gameplay. Given Team Ninja's history, though, a character action game of some sort is a safe bet. Whether it will be more like Ninja Gaiden or closer to Nioh, or something entirely different? Koei Tecmo hasn't revealed that yet. In any case, players will get a chance to find out in early 2023, the game's scheduled release window.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is in development for Xbox Series consoles and PC. It'll arrive on Xbox Game Pass upon release.

It must be a relief to ActiBlizz to have some good Diablo 4 news, given how everyone on Earth is ragging on Diablo Immortal 24/8 (when we are not open-mouthed at the stream of terrible news about the company, from numerous allegations of harrassment, misconduct and discrimination, to the company advising shareholders to not approve a proposal to report on harassment and discrimination). But at the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase tonight they were able to share that Diablo 4 is coming out next year for some much anticipated ARPG antics. Why, that's the Diablo game people keep saying they want!

Plus, the Necromancer is confirmed as the fifth playable class. There's a moody trailer that tries to make being a Necromancer sound twisted and dangerous and a hard path to walk, but it mostly makes it sound like Necromancers are cool badasses with loads of skeleton best friends.

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It's taken over four years of concerted pleading, but Sea of Thieves players will finally be able to name their own ships from July, when the multiplayer pirate adventure's very-long-awaited Captaincy Update arrives as part of Season Seven.

First discussed prior to Sea of Thieves' release, the Captaincy Update was originally set to be one of the game's first post-launch updates, giving Pirate Legends the ability create their own legendary ship and forge a fearsome identity for themselves on the waves. They'd also start each session within the Legendary Hideout, blasting through its waterfall to make a grand entrance on the main map.

Unfortunately, following Sea of Thieves' rocky launch, Rare announced it would be placing the Captaincy Update "on the back burner" while it refocused its development. Since then, the update has become the stuff of legends itself, many assuming it was lost to time.

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Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind 2019’s The Outer Worlds, has revealed Pentiment, a beautiful narrative journey through 16th Century Bavaria. It is coming to Xbox consoles and PC this November. 

Revealed during today’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Pentiment looks like quite the departure from what Obsidian has released over the past few years. Nonetheless, the project looks fascinating. The game features quite a unique visual style that looks reminiscent of an old medieval painting or book. This makes sense, too, because Pentiment is not an RPG like The Outer Worlds or a survival game like the studio’s Grounded, but rather, a narrative adventure game. 

Check out the trailer for yourself below: 

Here’s how Xbox describes Pentiment in the YouTube trailer description: 

“Set in 16th century Bavaria, Pentiment will take players on a narrative journey through the eyes of Journeyman Artist Andreas Maler during a time of great social unrest. Led by game director Josh Sawyer, this game is brought to life by a talented team inspired by illuminated manuscripts, woodcut prints, and history itself.” 

Pentiment hits Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC this November. 

Rumours spread this past week that Hideo Kojima's next would be called Overdose, and a return to the horror genre. Well, Kojima appeared during tonight's Microsoft conference and confirmed: yes, he is making a game of some kind. And that's it.

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As Dusk Falls, an interactive drama where you make choices that impact the characters' lives, made an appearance at the Xbox Games Showcase. The trailer, which was captured in-game, not only looked intriguing but also revealed the game's launch date. And it's next month!

On July 19, you can gear up with friends or solo to experience a story of "betrayal, sacrifice, and resilience." The trailer, which you can watch above, sheds light on some of the dilemmas and challenges you'll have to navigate in a small town. It makes statements like, "Sometimes doing the right thing is doing the wrong thing." The narrative-driven game will explore the entangled lives of two families across thirty years, and it looks like three characters, in particular, are at the forefront of the experience.

The multiplayer lets you have up to eight players, but it's unclear how each person will actually be involved in the process. 

Guess we'll know soon enough when As Dusk Falls launches on July 19 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. The game is also a day-one title on Xbox Game Pass.

Let’s hear fans of the Nioh series and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin rejoice, as the next game from developer Team Ninja has been announced during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase titled Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. While there isn’t any solid gameplay to go off of, it’s likely we’re looking at the next evolution of the Nioh gameplay.

But while Nioh has always been immersed in Japanese history, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will feature a historic China setting.

You can see the trailer for yourself below:

Team Ninja first made a name for themselves with fighting game series Dead or Alive that first came out in 1996. The most recent entry, Dead or Alive 6, released in 2019. They are also very well known for the Ninja Gaiden games, and released the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection just last year.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is set to release “early 2023,” and will release day one as part of Xbox Game Pass.

This was the big one! In this most curious of not-E3 weeks, Microsoft (and Bethesda) showed up with an old-fashioned E3-style showcase event, packed with gameplay videos for titles all out over the course of the next 12 months. Most are due out day one on Game Pass.

Highlights included our first look at Starfield gameplay, the mysterious Cocoon, the weird High On Life and Obsidian's new narrative adventure, Pentiment. Oh, and there was the small matter of Hideo Kojima making an Xbox exclusive.

In case you missed anything, here's everything announced in Microsoft and Bethesda's Games Showcase. Sit back, relax and enjoy catching up on all the reveals.

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If you like mournfully hopping around a mysterious world as a little person solving puzzles, you might like the sound of Cocoon: it's a deeply handsome puzzle-platforming indie from Jeppe Carlsen, the gameplay designer of Limbo and Inside.

You play as a kind of fly-person, who carries various glowing spheres around various exotic worlds. It's wonderfully moody, the opening desert hinting at some Sable-like vibes before we move on to a range of other ones, "worlds within worlds" as the blurb puts it. Even from just the trailer you get the sense there's some real cleverness to the puzzle-platforming to go with it.

Looks good! You can "unravel a cosmic mystery" in it next year, as it's coming 2023, like an awful lot of games it seems, on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass.

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Starfield may not be coming out in 2022, but Bethesda and Microsoft had more to share about the new original open-world game at the 2022 Xbox Showcase event. Bethesda head Todd Howard appeared to present more details on the long-in-development RPG, as well as reveal the first actual gameplay footage.

Howard showed off footage from early gameplay in the Starfield campaign, when players arrive on a mysterious moon. They disembark from their ship, alongside a human-sized robot companion. The player explores the area in both first- and third-person perspectives, and encounters a facility in use by the "Crimson Fleet Pirates." Armed with a gun, they storm the compound, killing the pirates and taking their loot. During the firefight, another spaceship arrives, which the player jumps to using a jetpack.

The Starfield gameplay footage then skips to a more peaceful section, after the player visits the Constellation faction at their capital on New Atlantis. They speak with a new character in the telltale zoomed-in conversational view used by Bethesda's RPGs, and are assigned a mission to determine the purpose of some mysterious artifacts. The Starfield trailer moved into a gameplay montage, featuring conversations and factions from the game.

Check out the full trailer below.

Starfield's delay was some of the biggest news to come this year, but alas not a surprise. After all, we had only been shown concept art with every teaser so far. Thankfully though, we now have our first look at some actual gameplay.

The gameplay starts off on the mysterious moon of Kreet and sees robot companion VASCO making his way out of the starship. Then, of course, we see some aliens, other space things and some combat. All the while, the swelling score is ticking along nicely in the background. We also pop over to New Atlantis at one point.

But you're not here to listen to me waffling on. You're here to see it for yourself. So, without further ado, here is our first look at gameplay for Starfield.

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E3 might have taken 2022 off, but the show(s) must go on. Today’s big one is the annual Xbox showcase, which shares title billing with the one first-party studio that’s only released games on PS5 since getting acquired by Microsoft for the price of a presidential election.

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During today’s Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, CEO of Microsoft’s gaming division Phil Spencer took to the stage and announced a “special partnership” between Xbox Game Studios and Metal Gear Solid creator, Hideo Kojima.

While details surrounding said project remain scarce at the time of writing, in a short video shown during the livestream, Kojima shed some light on the unannounced title:

Hi everyone, this is Hideo Kojima. Yes, there is a game that I have always wanted to make. It’s a completely new game, one that no one has ever experienced or seen before. I’ve waited very long for the day when I could finally start to create it. With Microsoft’s cutting edge Cloud technology, and the change in the industry’s trend, it has now become possible to challenge myself to make this never-before-seen concept. It may take some time, but I’m looking forward to teaming up with Xbox Game Studios and hope to bring you some exciting news in the future!

Of course, it’s fair to say that Hideo Kojima’s independant company, Kojima Productions, is largely more synonymous with working with Xbox’s rival, Sony, following the release of 2019’s PS4 console exclusive, Death Stranding.

In other words, this announcement will likely come as great news for Xbox fans who’ve been waiting to experience Kojima’s signature brand of unique game design and storytelling on their platform of choice.

The next expansion for open-world racer Forza Horizon 5 will once again feature the gravity-defying stunts and tracks of the Hot Wheels toys. The expansion launches on July 19th and it’s the second such DLC, following on from similar orange loop-de-loops made for Forza Horizon 3. Buckle up and try not to chuck when you watch the trailer below.

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Today, during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, Microsoft presented the first gameplay look at the space RPG Starfield by Bethesda.

We get to see the player’s arrival on the mysterious moon of Kreet in search of an abandoned research facility. Interestingly, the gameplay showcases some gathering aspects followed by combat, which is inevitable since pirates are occupying the facility.

We then move to the capital city of New Atlantis, showing some more peaceful interaction including dialogue and storytelling.

Next, we take an extensive look at the character creation that, according to Todd Howard, is the most advanced Bethesda has ever made.

Yet, characters aren’t the only thing you can customize. You can also build your own spaceship and recruit the crew. Of course, you can also fly them and fight in space against other spaceships.

You can land and explore everywhere on all the planets in 100 systems, which is over 1,000 planets.

You can find the footage below and try not to be impressed if you can.

Bethesda has recently delayed Starfield to 2023, so we still have quite a long time to wait before we’ll be able to play it.

The game will release for Xbox and PC. It will also launch on Xbox Game Pass at the same time as it does at retail.

Aspiring captains were treated to a sea-shanty outlining all the new features coming to Sea of Thieves in Season 7 during the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase.

The focus here is on added customisation for players, allowing players to really make their ships their own.

Some of the features that were shown off include the ability to save ship loadouts, customise your captain’s cabin, name your ships, and use new cash-in points to offload plunder. There will also be brand new gear for budding buccaneers to work towards throughout Season 7’s run.

Sea of Thieves is an immensely popular title, and more than 30 million players have set sail upon its stormy seas. It features cross-play, so console players can crew up with their PC compatriots.

Sea of Thieves Season 7 sets sail on July 21st, for Xbox and PC, and will be available on day one as a part of the Xbox Game Pass.

For all of the latest news from the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase, keep checking the Twinfinite home page, as we will be posting new stories throughout the run of the show.

Feature image source: Microsoft Studios

After spinning an action-RPG off Minecraft in 2020 with Minecraft Dungeons, Mojang Studios today announced the blocky builder is venturing into another new genre with an "action strategy game" named Minecraft Legends. Due to launch in 2023, Mojang are making it with Blackbird Interactive, the studio behind Homeworld 3 and Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Have a peek in the announcement trailer below.

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Today during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, a new game from Jeppe Carlsen, the gameplay designer of LIMBO and INSIDE, was announced. Developed by Geometric Interactive, the game is an isometric adventure called COCOON.

COCOON takes players on an adventure across “worlds within worlds.” You’ll be able to master mechanics to leap across these worlds and unravel a cosmic mystery.

Not much else is known about the game yet, but the first look gives us about a minute of gameplay to get a feel for what we will be able to expect from COCOON. Based on Jeppe Carlsen’s previous work in LIMBO and INSIDE, we can probably expect this new game to feature a lot of unique puzzle-solving to navigate a dangerous world.

Unlike its predecessors, though, COCOON looks bright and colorful; both of Carlsen’s previous games were predominantly black and white with darker themes.

COCOON will release on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Steam in 2023. It will be available day one on Game Pass. You can watch the reveal trailer that was shown during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase below.