Rare Replay is 50 GB on Xbox One

What future holds for Microsoft’s first-party studios

by

Since Scalebound was cancelled even though it’s a second-party partnership, many gamers are questioning what Microsoft has in terms of first-party studios and second-party developers. Well, we’re here to shine some light on that and reveal that many games are in development for Xbox One.

First-Party Studios

Xbox One:

• 343 Industries: Currently working on Halo 6 and Halo Wars 2. There are other projects in the Halo universe also in the works but they haven’t been announced. During recent interviews the studio heads said that there were more in development but they couldn’t talk about them yet.
• Decisive Games: The studio is possibly working on an Age of Empires reboot on Xbox One and Windows 10. We don’t know much about it but we do know they’re working on a beloved franchise and it’s not Halo Wars 2.
• Mojang: Currently working on Minecraft and other smaller games like the recently-released Cobalt. Minecraft has sold tens of millions units so supporting that game and expanding it seems to be the studio’s priority as of now.
• Rare: Currently working on Sea of Thieves and another possibly unannounced game. However, the unannounced game might be a rumor because there have been talks of a Battletoads remake floating around for years now.
• The Coalition: Currently working on Gears of War 4’s multiplayer and Gears of War 5. The studio is relatively new so I don’t think they’re working on anything other than that.
• Turn 10 Studios: The studio is currently working on Forza Motorsport 7 and I imagine Forza Horizon 4 too given Microsoft’s desire to make it into a yearly franchise.

Others:

• Lift London: The studio is working on HoloLens projects and seems to be working on smaller games with various independent partners. They’ve also working on mobile games from what I understand and have numerous titles in the pipeline. I’m not sure if they’re going to come to Xbox One but we’ll have to wait and see.
• Microsoft Casual Games: The studio makes games like Minesweeper, Solitaire and others. I don’t think these games are coming to Xbox One but that might change in the future.

Partnerships

• Crackdown 3: The rights are owned by Microsoft but it’s being made by Reagent Games. The original director is working on the project too.
• Cuphead: While this game started off as a small title it’s now a lifetime console exclusive along with Ashen which is being funded by Microsoft to some degree. The scope of the game has expanded drastically and it’s now much bigger than originally envisioned by the developers. You can put it on the same level as Ori and the Blind Forest.
• Forza Horizon 4: The game is a partnership between Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games.
• Halo Wars 2: Development of the game is taking place at Creative Assembly which is a Sega studio.
• Killer Instinct: Iron Galaxy is working on this Microsoft exclusive.
• Phantom Dust: Phantom Dust is also being developed through a similar partnership but we don’t know who’s working on it. We do know that it’s going well. I’m not sure the extent of the changes but we’ll see when it’s revealed.
• State of Decay 2: Undead Labs signed a ten-year partnership with Microsoft for State of Decay and possibly other projects.
• Voodoo Vince Remastered: We aren’t sure if this game is being developed by an internal studio or it’s being made by the original developers (Beep Industries) as Microsoft owns the rights to the franchise. We do know it’s coming and progress is being made on it at an astonishing rate.

While there are other games in development which we don’t know about—which Phil Spencer hinted at recently—we do know that the ones mentioned here are coming along strong and should release soon. Obviously Forza Horizon 4 won’t be out until 2018 but we’ll get Forza Motorsport 7 now which should support 4K 60 FPS on Xbox Scorpio and possibly include virtuality reality enhancements. This should ease your concerns and reveal that there are a lot of projects in the works which should be playable soon.

Leave a Comment