Microsoft's anniversary party came with a new id Software game, KOTOR and Morrowind on PC with achievements, free Halo Firefight and four minutes of Fable. Plus a memo that confirms a fifth Xbox and smells a lot like AI.
id Software confirms a new game, directed again by Hugo Martin.
21 more original Xbox games now run on PC, taking the total to 25.
KOTOR, KOTOR II, Blinx and Conker get achievements for the first time.
Halo: Campaign Evolved gets a free Firefight update in our summer.
Fable shows four minutes of gameplay ahead of its 23 February launch.
Xbox turns 25 on Sunday, and Microsoft spent its Seattle FanFest party dropping a pile of news at once. id Software has a new game on the go, 21 more original Xbox games now run on PC, Halo is getting Firefight back, and Fable showed off four minutes of gameplay.
Oh, and Xbox boss Asha Sharma used her anniversary memo to confirm a fifth console generation is coming, while hinting very hard at AI. Here’s the lot.
Sharma posted on X that Doom: The Dark Ages’ Slaughter Mode lands on Monday 16 November (US time), “and the team is already working on its next game.” id replied to confirm it’s a new game from its teams in Texas and Frankfurt, “with game direction once again by Hugo Martin.”
Nobody has said it’s Doom, and id says “it’ll be some time” before it shows anything. The timing is awkward, coming months after Microsoft’s layoffs gutted the studio, which is how a bunch of ex-id devs ended up starting their own studio.
Halo Studios says the four-player co-op wave mode is coming to Halo: Campaign Evolved in a free update “this winter”, which means our summer. FanFest punters got to play it first, and more details are due at Halo Fest in Seattle on 12-13 December.
Playground Games released a four-minute quest in which the Hero of Briar Hill and a local Hero called Arden head into Deepwood to work out why its magic has gone bad. Fable launches on 23 February 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and on Game Pass.
It’s 119.95 NZ dollars on Steam in New Zealand. PC Gamer reckons the footage looks grim and conventional rather than the bright, cheeky Fable people remember, and it’s not alone.
Sharma’s memo on Xbox Wire says Xbox has built four console generations, “with a fifth on the way”, and that its games reach more than a billion players a year. The 111 staff who’ve been there 25 years or more each get an engraved console.
The back half argues that games cost too much and take too long to make. Sharma never says AI, but writes that “a small team will be able to build worlds that today demand hundreds of developers”, as Eurogamer quotes it.
The backward compatibility drop is the best thing here by miles. KOTOR with achievements on a handheld PC is the kind of fan service that actually costs Microsoft something, and more of this please.
The rest is a mixed bag. Announcing id’s next game right after sacking half of id is peak corporate tone-deafness, and a memo about tiny teams building huge worlds lands differently when you’ve spent the year making your teams tiny.
Fable looks fine. Fine isn’t what anyone waited more than a decade for.
Everything else is on our Xbox page. Happy birthday or good riddance? Have it out in the GetRekt Discord.
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