Don’t let Starfield distract you; Xbox has plenty of other games waiting in the wings
There's more coming to Xbox than just big hitters.
During the ID@Xbox Digital Showcase yesterday, Microsoft showed off some of the indie games heading to soon to cloud, console, and PC.
The firm showed 20 in total, and we've picked out a few Xbox indies we thought were rather interesting.
One of these is MythForce from Beamdog, which we told you about previously. This game looks like a Saturday morning cartoon from the 1980s and is a roguelike adventure featuring a four-player online co-op. Set in the ever-changing Cursed Lands of Eldryth, after you have assembled your team and gathered your weapons, it's time to go out and slay some foes.
Playing as a cartoon hero, you will level up as you explore the dungeon, uncovering magical artifacts and upgrades. During your time in the game, you will acquire legendary weapons and use powerful magic to smite hordes of enemies. The game boasts replayability, as each attempt to beat the dungeon will be different, and you will find different treasures, traps, and terrors with each playthrough.
MythForce releases for Xbox Series X/S on September 12. It will also release the same day on PC and PlayStation, and it's coming to Switch.
A sequel to Videocult's Rain World is now available, and it's called Rain World: Downpour. This rather interesting-looking survival platformer has you playing as a nomadic slugcat in a broken ecosystem. With a trusty spear in hand, you will brave the industrial wastes and hunt food to survive. Be careful, though, as there are creatures larger than you out there looking for food as well, and they might eat you in the process.
The slugcat has evolved since the first game, and so have some of the monsters. Five new slugcats are traveling the landscape of this large, ancient civilization, all driven by curiosity, revenge, hunger, and other emotions, as they search for their truth.
Rain World: Downpour is out now on Xbox, as well as PC, PlayStation, and Switch.
Another interesting title is Scarlet Deer Inn which is decribed as an embroidered narrative platformer.
In it, you will meet an interesting cast of characters, venture into a dark dungeon with monsters, and interact with branching dialogues leading to optional backstories and bonus locations. The game is a unique mix of adventure and platformer with embroidered character frames and hand-painted backgrounds inspired by Studio Ghibli movies.
Set in medieval Europe and full of Slavic folklore, the game tells the story of Elise, a mother of two. She is not exactly extraordinary, but circumstances will make her explore places full of the interesting and unusual, as well as the dark and terrifying.
It is currently without a release date and is also coming to Steam and Switch.
Sea of Stars is another game you should have on your radar. We played the demo during Steam Next Fest and had a great time with it. While it won't be available until August 29, you can try the PC demo out still, and the demo is also now available for Xbox.
This turn-based RPG is highly inspired by classic games in the genre, and you can tell when playing it. It reminds us of so many we played in the past, it's hard to pinpoint which one it reminds us of the most. The game tells the story of two Children of the Solstice who combine the powers of the sun and moon to perform Eclipse Magic. This is the only force capable of fending off the monsters created by the evil alchemist known as The Fleshmancer.
The demo features areas that will be part of the final game, but one good thing is that it does not reveal any major spoilers from the main story. It is designed just to give a hint of context, and showcase some gameplay systems and mechanics around dungeon crawling and combat.
A prequel story set in The Messenger’s universe, Sea of Stars was developed by indie studio Sabotage and funded on Kickstarter back in 2020 in under seven hours of going live on the crowdfunding site. The game is also coming to PlayStation and Switch.
Other titles we revealed during the ID@Xbox Showcase, and you can read over the list on Xbox Wire.