The Xbox Developer Director has confirmed a release window for Fable and an exact release date for Forza Horizon 6, but one of them will have to wait for its PS5 version.
Microsoft has seemingly given up trying to explain its multiformat policy and hasn’t mentioned it publicly now for many months. But after Thursday evening’s Developer Direct it now seems clear that every first party game will be appearing on PlayStation 5, the only question is exactly when.
Given modern games take five years or more to make, anything coming out now was never originally intended for the PlayStation 5. So many Xbox games, especially from smaller developers, have had to wait a while for a PlayStation version.
Although developer Playground Games is hardly small, Forza Horizon 6 is one of those games and while the Direct confirmed the already leaked release date of May 19 it won’t be out on PlayStation until ‘later this year’.
Forza Horizon 6
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As previously announced, Forza Horizon 6 is set in Japan, with a map five times larger than the series has seen before. It all looked very impressive visually and there was a lot of emphasis on community features, such as open world car meets, and customisation – including a large estate where you can construct whole buildings.
There’ll be 550 different cars at launch, with more to follow via DLC, while the end of the trailer implied some kind of giant robot. We didn’t recognise the feet though, so we’re not sure if it’s something that’s been licensed or an original design.
Surprisingly, there was no mention of deluxe or premium editions, since that’s what had leaked earlier in the day, but the pre-order page confirms that if you buy the latter you can start playing the game early, on May 15.
Beast Of Reincarnation
The second game to be showcased was Beast Of Reincarnation from Pokémon developer Game Freak. Their non-Pokémon games have been very hit and miss over the years, but this did look more serious than their previous titles.
It also looks remarkably like Tecmo Koei’s Monster Hunter clone Wild Hearts, which also features oversized animals mixed with plant elements. The plant angle is much more emphasised in Beast Of Reincarnation, as you team up with a wolf to fight mutated animals and robots with the souls of humans in them.
It all looks decent fun, in a fairly generic action role-playing kind of a way, with no direct similarities to Pokémon. It’ll be out this summer on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC – as well as day one on Game Pass.
Kiln
Although only three games were advertised for the Direct it was already rumoured that there’d be four, with the extra one said to be a small indie style project from a first party developer. That was widely imagined to be The Outer Wilds 2 maker Obsidian but, surprisingly, it was Double Fine, who only just released single-player game Keeper last October.
Kiln is completely different though, as it’s a 4v4 party game where you have to shape your own clay pots and vessels in order to inhabit them with an incorporeal spirit and then fight the other team, with the goal being to fill yourself with water and extinguish the enemy’s kiln.
It’s a fun, typical high concept idea, but gameplay has never been Double Fine’s forte and that will be more important than usual this time, if Kiln is a multiplayer game.
Kiln will be out this spring on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, with a closed beta ‘soon’. We’re not sure why this, in particular, isn’t also on Switch 2 but then Microsoft’s promises about supporting Nintendo’s new format have never seemed genuine.
Fable
The final game to be shown was the reboot of Fable, which Playground Games has been working on for the best part of a decade now and yet this was the first time they’d really shown it off properly.
It certainly looks a lot like the original games, but that’s our main concern, as the original games really weren’t that great and even the best one, Fable 2, was a fairly flawed experience.
We’re concerned that Playground is going to spend an awful lot of time pandering to a nostalgia that doesn’t really exist, although the more optimistic way of looking at things is that they might finally make good on the true potential of the concept.
If you are a Fable fan then there seems plenty to get excited about here, with lots of returning enemies and a very similar look and feel. Playground were insistent in saying that this is a true open world, rather than the fudged one from the original, and that it will have an expanded morality system that allows for shades of grey.
Side activities like owning property and getting married are set to be a big part of the experience but the most interesting boast was that there are 1,000 named non-player characters in the game and that you can not only speak to all of them but you can also follow them around all day and see that they have a whole virtual life they’re living out.
Fable doesn’t have an exact release date, but it will be out this autumn on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The implication being that all three versions will come out at the same time – indeed, getting the game ready for PlayStation 5 from the start may well have been the reason for the most recent delay.
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