The first major games showcase of the year comes from Xbox and it’ll be primarily dedicated to the new Fable and Forza Horizon 6 games.
It should come as no surprise that Xbox is airing a new Developer Direct showcase this month. It’s been an annual occasion since 2023 and Microsoft confirmed one was coming last month – even if they never said exactly when.
However, they did promise that that Fable and Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground Games would be featured and that, because Xbox has so many games planned for 2026, it can’t fit them all into one show.
Despite that claim, this year’s showcase is looking awfully thin. These Developer Directs have typically shown off four or five games, but not only does this year’s show only have three, none of them are new reveals.
When is the January 2026 Xbox Developer Direct?
As confirmed by an Xbox Wire blog post, the Developer Direct is scheduled for Thursday, January 22 at 6pm GMT.
Most of it will be spent on updates from British developer Playground Games, which means in-depth looks at both Fable (which was meant to launch last year but was delayed to 2026) and Forza Horizon 6.
While this will be the first proper gameplay debut for Forza Horizon 6, Fable’s past trailers did offer glimpses of its combat, but there’s never been any extended gameplay demonstrations.
Detailed information about Fable in general has been incredibly vague ever since its 2020 announcement. There have been rumours of it drawing influence from CD Projekt’s The Witcher series of action role-players for its combat, but that’s never been substantiated.
The only other game that will be shown is Beast Of Reincarnation, another action role-player that was announced at last year’s Xbox summer showcase and comes from Pokémon developer Game Freak.
Forza Horizon 6 and Beast Of Reincarnation are both slated for PlayStation 5 releases, although the former may come out on Xbox first. Fable has never been confirmed as a multiformat title, but given Microsoft’s current policies it seems impossible that it won’t be.
Perhaps Microsoft has a secret announcement planned for the showcase, but nothing in the blog post hints at there being more than just these three games – and Xbox has rarely been able to keep a secret.
It’s possible Microsoft is saving the bigger reveals for a summer showcase. Not only is there a Halo 1 remake out this year (one that will also launch for PlayStation 5), but we’re also supposed to be getting Gears Of War prequel E-Day as welll.
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2026 also marks not only the 25th anniversary of the Xbox brand, but the 40th anniversary of Bethesda as well.
Recently, it was suggested that a new Wolfenstein could be announced as part of the celebrations, as well as possibly a new Quake, but it seems neither will feature in the Developer Direct.
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