XBOX Adopts Hollywood Playbook With Early Franchise Reveal

From Wolfenstein 3 to The Elder Scrolls 6 and a 2030 StarCraft, Microsoft is revealing its biggest franchises years early with little more than a name and a team.

If you follow XBOX news, you've likely noticed reveals starting to look a lot like movie announcements. You get the franchise name, the studio, and the people behind it, and a rough date that might be years away. The Batman 2 was confirmed the same way, years before release.

That breaks a long gaming tradition. Reveals that could have closed a showcase now arrive as social posts, and around 10 major franchise games have been announced this way. The most recent example came during the XBOX 25th anniversary celebration, where Bethesda's MachineGames confirmed Wolfenstein 3 is in production.

Pete Hines first mentioned a third game back in 2018, and plenty has happened since. XBOX and Bethesda merged, Wolfenstein: Youngblood landed poorly, and the studio released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, leaving room for a follow-up. The reveal itself was just a script and a screenshot from a motion-capture session.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is another case. XBOX seems to want its studios to keep fans updated, and the game now has a full name: The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel. The trailer that came with it shows sand, a scroll, the title, and a quote, and that's about it. It also skipped doing anything special for Skyrim's 15th anniversary.

Some of the year's biggest news, on July 17, came the same way. A text post said remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas are in the works, with no dates, and that Fallout 3 is coming first. The same post covered Fallout Day plans, which moved to a celebration in DC instead of the usual stream.

It also confirmed that Obsidian is making a new Fallout game and that Fallout 5 is in pre-production, something Todd Howard had already mentioned.

Blizzard and the wider XBOX family followed suit. A 47-second BlizzCon trailer set Diablo for 2029, while StarCraft is aimed at 2030. Activision will also make the next Halo with a new team separate from Call of Duty, which was announced alongside layoffs.

During the anniversary, Asha Sharma also confirmed that idSoftware is working on a new game with teams in Texas and Frankfurt, with Hugo Martin returning as game director and more details coming later. Two things stand out with this approach. The first is exclusivity. These reveals would land harder if you knew where the games are headed.

Declaring everything except Call of Duty exclusive would turn reveals like Wolfenstein 3 or The Elder Scrolls 6 into real moments for XBOX fans. Instead, things are murky. Right after the StarCraft reveal, a Blizzard spokesperson told a reporter the game won't be a game exclusive and that a story calling it an XBOX exclusive would need a correction.

That points to PC, but it's unclear if consoles, or only XBOX, are included. Activision has also operated largely on its own throughout the acquisition. That leaves you guessing whether these games are next-gen only, PC-only, or streaming titles. Second, this is what you could call "hits-only XBOX."

These are tentpole franchises that make noise on name alone.

A sequel to Kiln, South of Midnight 2, or Hellblade 3 wouldn't create the same buzz. Fallout, Wolfenstein, Diablo, and StarCraft are huge, and some have TV shows attached, including a Diablo show on Netflix. The trade-off is surprise. A new Fallout from Obsidian could have been a dream showcase closer, or a Game Awards reveal, while future shows may now feature games you already know.

On the other hand, there's a case for ending the secrecy around game development. Surprise reveals like Fate of the Old Republic excite fans, but they also make companies money by driving buzz. XBOX has now laid out its full slate for the next few years, from Bethesda, Blizzard, and id Software, and you also know about Hideo Kojima's Physint and OD, the latter announced far in advance.

That's 10 or 11 known projects, and early reveals carry risk, since games can stall in development, as Wolfenstein 3 did, from 2018 to 2026, to reach production. The shift echoes early Game Pass Day One, when third-party titles like Outriders, MLB The Show, and Dark Alliance gave the program a mixed reputation.