Xbox 2 launch games confirmed – including Rainbow Six, Watch Dogs and a new Halo
GAMERS will be able to get their hands on a brand new Xbox console next year, with a slew of cracking new games to boot.
Few details have emerged about "Project Scarlett", as Microsoft have codenamed it, other than a release date and a few launch games.
This week, games-maker Ubisoft confirmed it will release five titles on the console when it hits shelves in Christmas 2020.
We've summed up all the games confirmed so far for Project Scarlett below.
Watch Dogs: Legion
The third title in the Watch Dogs series, this Ubisoft action blockbuster is set in a dystopian London.
Specifically, it's set in the not too distant future in post-Brexit London.
"We chose London as a setting before the Brexit debate was even happening, and certainly before the vote," Watch Dogs Legion creative director Clint Hocking told .
Surveillance has become a major part of life in the capital, with drones loaded with CCTV cameras flooding the sky.
Apparently, you'll be able to recruit and play as any NPC in your quest to save the city.
Expect huge action set-pieces and a tight story in this big-budget thriller.
Halo Infinite
Halo is the crown jewel of Xbox exclusives, so the prospect of a new game should have Xbox owners everywhere excited.
The sequel to Halo 5, Halo Infinite features a new graphics engine, creating gorgeous visuals that’ll blow you away.
There are also rumours that the story will adapt based on your decisions – so you might have even more control over Master Chief than normal.
And Master Chief will look a little different in the newest title.
Halo Infinite's narrative experience director Dan Chosich said: "It is by far the coolest Master Chief we have ever done, or that anybody's ever really done."
God and Monsters
God and Monsters is a new game from Ubisoft.
It's apparently a "storybook adventure" set in a fantastical open-world of Greek mythology.
The art style is cartoon-y, a bit like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Xbox 2 news and rumours – what we know so far
Here's what we know about the next-gen Xbox...
- In June 2019, Microsoft revealed that its all-new console would be coming out in 2020
- It doesn't have an official name yet - for now, Microsoft are still using the development code-name Project Scarlett
- As with the next PlayStation, it's going to use super speedy 'solid state' storage to drastically reduce or even totally eliminate loading times
- This means your games should start up almost instantly, and there won't be lengthy pauses between scenes, or when moving from one part of a game's world to another
- It's going to be able to play older games too, with Microsoft making big promises about backwards compatibility
- "Thousands of games across four console generations will look and play best on Project Scarlett," they say, referring to the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, the Xbox One and the new console
- The third area where they matched Sony is the chips at the console's heart - the brains of Project Scarlett is the same AMD Navi technology at the heart of Sony's next console
- It's not quite identical to the PlayStation chips, as both are custom-made for the companies in question
- AMD promised Sony's "special sauce" was built into their chips, while Microsoft describe the core of their new box is a "custom-designed AMD processor"
- Xbox boss Phil Spencer also revealed that processor would have hardware dedicated to ray-tracing
- Ray-tracing is a new technology just making it into the most expensive gaming PCs that makes lighting and sound incredibly realistic by calculating the exact path of each ray of light or sound wave through transparent objects and off reflective surfaces
- This gives you much more realistic lighting and reflections as well as much more natural looking materials and objects
- Sony has confirmed the next PlayStation will have something similar, but hasn't revealed if the console will have hardware specifically dedicated to it
- Finally, Microsoft also revealed that Halo: Infinite, which is first revealed at the same briefing last year, is going to launch with the new Xbox
- The latest chapter in the story of Master Chief will release alongside Project Scarlett devices in time for "Holidays 2020", meaning around mid-November
"Embark on a journey to the Isle of the Blessed, taken over by dangerous creatures of mythology," Ubisoft writes on its website.
"Prove your legendary heroism by taking on their leader, Typhon, the deadliest monster in all of mythology in a face-off for the ages."
"Explore a beautiful fantasy world where tricky puzzles, mysterious dungeons and heroic feats await.
"The journey will be as challenging and rewarding as the final destination."
Rainbow Six Quarantine
Following on from 2015's massively successful Rainbow Six Siege, Rainbow Six Quarantine adds a fresh twist to the shooter series.
Rather than terrorists, you'll be running and gunning against zombies, if a teaser trailer released by Ubisoft is anything to go by.
It'll be three-player co-op, and other than that we really don't know much.
"Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Quarantine is a three-player, tactical co-op shooter," Ubisoft says on its website.
The game is set "several years in the future of the Rainbow Six Universe", apparently.
Grand Theft Auto 6
Rockstar has yet to acknowledge it's making another GTA, but it's safe to say the game is in the works.
Fans have been baying for a followup to the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto V.
The blockbuster hit sold 90million copies and has made an estimated £5billion since it was released in 2013.
Back in May, a leaker claimed players would take the role of a drug lord in the series' latest instalment.
Apparently, it takes place in three locations from previous games.
It's also been claimed that gamers will take the role of two characters, one female and one male.
All speculation for now, and we can only cross our fingers that Rockstar gives us something concrete over the next few months.
It's likely to launch towards the end of the next year at the very earliest: Just in time for the release of the new Xbox.
Cyberpunk 2077
This huge futuristic role-playing game is going to feature a huge world of branching choices... and Keanu Reeves.
Cyberpunk 2077 is an upcoming RPG video game developed by CD Projekt Red – the creator of the acclaimed The Witcher series.
But instead of a fantasy setting, the new game is based in a dystopian sci-fi world where humans are part-machine.
Body modification is widespread, with technological implants and more biological augmentation commonplace.
You play as V, who you can customise throughout the game.
Male and female voices are available, and you get to choose your own background too.
Your choice of background will impact your in-game choices too - you'll have different options open to you in conversation for each origin story.
V will fight their way through the game in one way or another, but exactly how is up to you.
If you want to focus on super-strength and weapon skills you can approach problems head on and slice your enemies into bloody chunks - but you'll also have the option of being a stealth specialist or a hacker.
It will, we are told, entirely possible to complete the game's main story without killing a single person if you focus on the right skills.
Coming April 2020, the game will release for Xbox One and PS4, but you can bet there will be a re-release for the new generation of consoles.
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In other news, Call of Duty players on Xbox have been experiencing strange system crashes.
Sony recently confirmed the PS5 is coming before Christmas 2020.
And, a recent "price leak" suggested the PS5 could cost £250 more than its predecessor.
Are you excited for the new Xbox? Let us know in the comments!
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