The best of Summer Game Fest 2023

Now that the whirlwind of all the Summer Game Fest events are over, the TA news team has dived in to pick out a few of their favourite announcements.

It's fair to say there's a little difference in what each member of the team gravitates towards, so this list of our favourite Summer Game Fest announcements ranges from mutant terrors to space-faring scoundrels to cute and cuddly dino friends. So, without further ado, prepare thyselves for tonal whiplash, and let's dive in...

Sean — Star Wars Outlaws

I’m a big Star Wars head, and I wasn’t sure what to make of Ubisoft’s new open-world game, Star Wars Outlaws, at first. Like many other jaded gamers, I am burnt out on Ubisoft’s open-world formula, so I was skeptical when it was revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase. It wasn’t until Ubisoft Forward, when we saw some gameplay and the scope of the game, that I got excited. It appears that Outlaws has a bit of everything, including third-person shooting, stealth, driving speeders, piloting ships in space, and engaging in dogfights. Ubisoft says we’ll also be able to weave our own story by making dialogue choices that will affect our reputations with certain factions and syndicates. There is so much on offer here, and hopefully, Ubisoft will be able to tie it all together with a decent Star Wars story. While EA may have the high ground with its excellent Star Wars Jedi series, perhaps Ubisoft can offer a new hope?

Sean — A Highland Song

Let me get this out of the way before I continue: A Highland Song has not been announced for Xbox. Yes, I know this is an Xbox website, but it’s like someone made this game specifically for me, and I have to shout about it. I love Scottish folk music, from the Gaelic-laden rocky folk songs of Peat & Diesel to the anthemic indie folk from Tide Lines, I can’t get enough of it, and when A Highland Song popped up during the Wholesome Direct, I instantly ran over to Steam and added it to my wishlist. A Highland Song is a gorgeous-looking narrative adventure game about a young woman who runs away from home with the aim of getting to the coast, but to get there, she must cross the rugged Scottish Highlands. It features platforming, combined with some survival elements, but also some rhythm elements too, and some of these rhythm sections are set to songs by probably my all-time favorite Scottish folk band, Talisk and another excellent band called Fourth Moon. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve heard any traditional Scottish folk in a game before, so to see it represented here alongside what looks to be a very impressive narrative platforming game — oh boy, am I excited. Fingers crossed it eventually makes its way over to Xbox, and we can all enjoy some good ol’ Scottish folk together. Yes, even the bagpipes.

Heidi — ID@Xbox Game Pass announcement

Ok, I guess this one's a little cheeky because it involves ten games rather than one, but I was hoping for some surprise announcements during Xbox Games Showcase Extended and I love cozy wholesome indie games, so Microsoft announcing ten upcoming ID@Xbox day-one additions was great news. Doubly so because it means I also get to talk about another of my favourite events taking place around the time of Summer Game Fest: Wholesome Direct, which this year featured announcements and updates from over 70 fantastic indie titles. We had a new trailer there for Mineko's Night Market, which is one I’ve been waiting for — I was just pleased it was coming to Xbox, so to have it join Game Pass on day one is just fantastic. It’s a social sim inspired by Japanese culture where you help restore a village and craft things to sell at the Night Market, while also looking into the myth of the Sun Cat Nikko. That’s the first one that caught my eye in ID@Xbox’s announcement, but I’m also excited to play The Wandering Village and Little Kitty, Big City — and I sort of have to find out what on earth’s going on in the Soulslike game about a hermit crab: Another Crab’s Treasure.

Heidi — South of Midnight

One of my unexpected favourites from the Xbox Games Showcase was the announcement of third-person action-adventure game South of Midnight. As you can probably tell from the other picks on here, I sometimes tend to gravitate towards more light-hearted games and less towards things with sizeable spooky swamp monsters — but South of Midnight managed to conjure up such a sense of atmosphere in less than two and a half minutes with its exploration of myth and folklore that I’m already invested in what comes next. Sadly, this one might still be a way off; there’s no release date or window yet, but we do know it’s coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Heidi — Paleo Pines

I’ve been waiting for a Paleo Pines release date for a long, long time. It was confirmed as coming to Xbox too a while ago, and then the devs hinted at a reveal during Future Games Show, so after Wholesome Direct I was glued to it — until I happened to look away for two seconds and missed it. Luckily, Sean caught it (the long-suffering team are often subjected to lectures on why Paleo Pines looks so great) and there it was: confirmation that Paleo Pines would be out on September 26. Sure, the release date trailer only mentions Steam and so doesn’t exactly confirm it’ll be out on Xbox on the same day, but for the sake of my sanity, I’m pretending it does. Paleo Pines will have us ranching and farming with the help of dinos, which we find by exploring the island. We’ll also be helping the villagers and creating a nice sanctuary for all our dino friends.

Tom — Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Unlike Sean, I’m far from burnt out on massive open-world games — my only issue is time. Finding the time to explore them is the hardest part, and while I’m yet to finish everything Far Cry 6 has to offer, I’m totally ready to play Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in December. It wasn’t really on my radar before, but after seeing the gameplay during Ubisoft Forward, I’m sold and ready to hand over my cash for a chance to get lost in James Cameron’s incredible universe. The world looks gorgeous, with colors that pop on the screen, and the overview trailer says we’ll be able to customize our character, wield weapons from both the Na’vi and the RDA, and most importantly, tame and customize our own ikran so we can take to the skies! Avatar: Frontiers of Pandor is set after the events of the first film, and see us playing as an abducted Na’vi child who wakes up after 15 years of cryosleep and must fight to earn the trust of the Na’vi clans and take down the RDA. Sean described it as Far Cry: Blue Man Edition, and that feels like the perfect summation, which is exactly what attracts me to this awesome-looking game!

Tom — John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of slaughtering hordes of zombies and I love a good co-op shooter. Not only does John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando feature plenty of undead to obliterate and four-player co-op, but it’s also developed by Saber Interactive (I loved World War Z and Insurgency, published by one of my favorite publishers, Focus Entertainment, and created in collaboration with the legendary director himself, John Carpenter)! Toxic Commando is said to be an 80s-inspired first-person shooter, and after growing up watching Carpenter’s films like Escape from New York / L.A., The Thing, and Ghosts of Mars, I have high hopes that this will be awesome. Following an experiment to harness the Earth’s core for power, an eldritch creature known as the Sludge God is awakened and begins terraforming the surrounding area and causing the living to become undead creatures. We play as a Toxic Commando, a mercenary unit hired to save the planet and obliterate the undead hordes with guns, special abilities, vehicles, and more, which we’ll be able to customize using the class system. It looks and sounds like chaotic fun, and I can’t wait to play it when it launches on Xbox Series X|S in 2024!

“Look, I really like shooting zombies. They keep telling me that they’re called ’the infected.’ Please. They’re ghouls, dude. They blow up real good and there are a ton of them. People are going to love this game,” John Carpenter says.

Tom — Starfield

Do I really need to explain why Bethesda’s upcoming space adventure is on this list? I mean, we all saw the Starfield Direct, right? I’ve never been big on sci-fi or space stuff, and have always found fantasy worlds filled with dragons and magic to be a preferable place to imagine myself in, but hot damn Starfield has me excited. Bethesda Game Studios has a habit of creating incredible game worlds that suck you in for extortionate lengths of time, but Starfield looks to be taking it up a notch — when you can share a deep dive into your game that lasts almost as long as the main Xbox showcase, and still leave me feeling like it was nothing more than a tease, your game is probably monstrous (I'm still waiting to see those Starfield achievements, though!) Gunplay looks more refined than in previous showcases, the spaceship customization seems to dwarf any housing content Bethesda has done before (I want a cargo bay just for sandwiches), and the sheer scale of the planetary exploration has reawakened that excited child in me once more. I cannot wait to play this game and explore the far reaches of space with an Adoring Fan!

What do you think? What were your favourite announcements from all the events during Summer Game Fest? Let us know in the comments!

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Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.