Xbox Series X event Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and everything just

Microsoft

Microsoft finally treated us to some gameplay reveals for its eagerly anticipated Xbox Series X console, which is slated to ship late this year. The highlight was Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which lets you go “a-raiding” with longships, in a far more recent and moody Dark Age English setting than the most recent previous games. The gameplay will be a lot more hardcore as well, and you get to build settlements.

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This was the first of a series of monthly shows about the Xbox Series X, called Xbox 20/20. The company showed off third-party launch titles, all Xbox Series X optimized. The company says there are at least nine games thus far to bear that honor. In July we’ll get the same for Microsoft’s own Xbox Game Studios games.

Games that support the whizzy new technologies in the console will be badged as “Optimized for Xbox Series X.”

Microsoft

One of the big additions to the console is the 1TB solid-state drive that promises to not only make games load faster but also boasts the ability to let users jump right back in where they left off across several games, with a feature called Quick Resume. Another highlight is Smart Delivery — where supported, if you buy a game for your Xbox One it’ll automatically include a Series X copy and Microsoft will feed your console the appropriate version of the game.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Wave goodbye to sun-drenched classical locales.

Screenshot by Bryan Van Gelder/CNET

Codemasters’ Dirt 5 shows a lot more locations and seasons. A travelogue with drifting. And new cars, of course. Troy Baker and Nolan North provide voices, and there was an allusion to notable cameos.

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Scorn.

Microsoft/Screenshot by Bryan VanGelder/CNET

Ebb’s Scorn Horror has a creeptastic H.R. Giger, Alien-like look. The latter will be available on Game Pass, but didn’t show any gameplay.

Chorus.

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Deep Silver’s Chorus, a single-player game with a sentient starfighter, is coming in 2021.

Vampire: Masquerade — Bloodlines 2.

Microsoft/Screenshot by Bryan VanGelder/CNET

Paradox will be giving us Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2. Dead human puppets. Yikes.

Of course, there’s football: Madden 21. Not an Xbox exclusive, but it will support Smart Delivery when it arrives later this year. Superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes introduced some footage, and may not have been wearing pants. Well, we’re all working from home.

Call of the Sea will also be available on Xbox Game Pass.

Call of the Sea.

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The Ascent is a co-op action RPG where you have to stop corporations and gangs from taking over while you figure out what’s going on. Because that’s what you do in cyberpunk.

The Ascent.

Microsoft/Screenshot by Bryan Van Gelder/CNET

The Medium.

Microsoft/Screenshot by Bryan Van Gelder/CNET

Bloober’s The Medium is about… a medium straddling the real world and a horror-filled otherworld trying to solve a child’s murder, with music by Arkadiusz Reikowski and Silent Hill’s Akira Yamaoka.