‘Dragon Ball Fighter Z’ is a lavish 2D fighter coming to Xbox One

If you loved visual style of the Naruto: Ultimate Storm series, or just carry a childhood fascination with the Dragonball series (still!), Dragonball Fighter Z might be for you — three-on-three battles, powered-up final forms, insane projectiles and energy beams are just the start. Notably the game going back to two-dimensional beat-em-up basics. Yep, while scene transitions and high-powered moves will see the camera shift to make fights more cinematic, the majority of the battle will place on just one plane — with some teleporting and lighting fast dodging thrown into the mix. The game will launch (on Xbox One) in early 2018 — though it doesn’t appear to be a Microsoft-exclusive.

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Source: Xbox (Twitter)

‘Gone Home’ follow-up ‘Tacoma’ arrives August 2nd

At last, we have a release date for Fullbright’s Gone Home follow-up, Tacoma: August 2nd. The Portland-based developer showed a brief trailer during Microsoft’s E3 press conference, full of beautiful spaceship corridors and meeting rooms. The game, if you’re unfamiliar, will put you in the role of galactic detective, rewatching old holographic recordings in order to unravel what happened aboard the station. It’s been a long time coming — the game was first announced at The Game Awards in 2014, and was delayed to “Spring 2017” more than a year ago. But given how influential Gone Home was…we’re more than happy with the wait.

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‘Crackdown 3’ delivers cel-shaded destruction with Terry Crews

It’s a year late, but Crackdown 3 is finally landing on November 7th, right alongside the Xbox One X’s launch. Just like before, the focus is on teaming up with friends and causing plenty of destruction in huge, open environments. This time around though, you’ve got Terry Crews by your side. The game looks great, with a cyberpunk-heavy cel-shaded style and more mayhem than we’ve ever seen before in a Crackdown game. But most importantly, it features some gorgeous explosions.

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‘Sea of Thieves’ won’t take you on an epic pirate adventure until 2018

When Rare teased us with Sea of Thieves last year, it left the release date up in the air. Sure, we knew the game would set us on an adventure across the high seas, but we had no idea when we would set sail on our quest for loot. Now we know. Sort of. Today at E3, the company penned the adventure in for a 2018 release date, naturally exclusive for Xbox One and Windows 10.

That’s a little bit longer of a wait than we hoped, but the wait could be worth it. Despite the game’s simple and slightly goofy visual style, it looks appropriately huge. The titles short on-stage demo showed a team of pirates diving deep under the sea to loot a derelict ship (while avoiding deadly sharks), deciphering clues to find buried treasure on a remote island, and taking part in an epic ship-to-ship battle in the midst of a roaring storm.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t get into any specifics. We still know the game is a sort of shared world, but the exact scale of that universe and how multiplayer works is still unknown. Are games limited to the eight players we saw in the demo, or can the game take on a more massive scale? It’s also not clear if there’s any kind of leveling or character customization system. Either way, it’ll probably be awhile before we find out — Sea of Thieves isn’t slated to launch until sometime in early 2018

‘Life is Strange: Before the Storm’ arrives August 31st

Life is Strange was an episodic hit across multiple platforms, and today during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference we got a first look at its follow-up: Life is Strange: Before the Storm. This prequel is set three years before the original game and deals with the period when Max left Chloe and, (spoiler alert?) Rachel is there. The first of three episodes will debut August 31st, and since it wasn’t announced as a console exclusive, we’re guessing it will be available on more than just Xbox. Also, this game is not the sequel currently under development by Dontnod (along with Vampyr, and it’s not here at E3), and is being handled by another team, Deck Nine.

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Hand-drawn side-scroller ‘Cuphead’ arrives on September 29th

The development of Cuphead has been prolonged, to put it mildly (we first saw it back in 2014), but it’s finally here… almost. Studio MDHR and Microsoft have announced that the 1930s-style side-scroller will be available for Xbox One and Windows PCs on September 29th. The release date isn’t shocking when the developers had already pushed the game to 2017, but it’s still a relief for those who’ve wondered whether the title would ever exist outside of trade show demos. Given the nature of the title, though, it’s almost surprising that it’s arriving as quickly as it has.

The game’s centerpiece is its entirely hand-drawn art — this is meant to feel like a classic Felix the Cat cartoon that you can play. And when Studio MDHR is really just two brothers (Chad and Jared Moldenhauer), there isn’t exactly a huge team to speed up the creative process. Hopefully, the completed game reflects that extreme level of devotion.

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Immerse yourself in an all-cartoon magical wondergame when #Cuphead [E] launches September 29: https://t.co/8BdCcbkV4e #XboxOneX pic.twitter.com/kt2ohLQw2m

— Xbox (@Xbox) June 11, 2017

Source: Xbox (Twitter)

‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ will hit Xbox One this year

If you even casually follow large scale multiplayer shooter games like DayZ and Arma 3, you’ve probably heard of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. This battle royale game has taken the PC gaming community by storm by remixing the murder-competition gameplay of a popular Arma 3 mod into a fast paced and tense experience — and the console experience will be available to Xbox One owners first as a launch exclusive. When will PS4 owners get access? It’s hard to say: Sony doesn’t have a preview program for broken, unfinished games.

That sounds harsh, but it’s not unfair. It’s true, Battlegrounds is an addictive, tense and genuinely fun experience — but the PC version of the game is plagued by glitches, broken physics and frequent game crashes. So why the exclusivity? Microsoft’s console has a system for releasing unfinished games as preview content. Sony’s doesn’t.

Hopefully, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will run better on the Xbox One than it does on most PCs — but even if it doesn’t, it might be worth playing anyway. After all, three million PC gamers can’t be wrong …can they?

Original Xbox games are coming to Xbox One backwards compatibility

After bringing 385 Xbox 360 titles to the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility feature, Microsoft is going even further back in time. The company announced at E3 today that it’ll soon offer original Xbox titles on the Xbox One, as well. That includes Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, one of the console’s best titles. Microsoft says it’ll share more details when the program officially launches later this year.

While it might seem strange for the company to spend resources bringing over older games, it’s a smart way to appease Xbox fans, and it could introduce a whole new generation of gamers to some memorable titles.

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Microsoft’s existing games will play in 4K on your Xbox One X

You won’t have to spring for new games to take advantage of the Xbox One X’s 4K prowess. Microsoft is updating several of its own games to play in 4K on the newer console. In addition to the already-announced Minecraft upgrade, you can expect to see the higher resolution in Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, Killer Instinct and Halo Wars 2 (what, no Halo 5?), among others. Not surprisingly, all of the updates will be free — Microsoft wants you to have as many One X-ready titles as possible.

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Free 4K updates are coming for #ForzaHorizon3 [E], #Minecraft [E10+], and more. Watch #XboxE3: https://t.co/Z3I4CSvRn2 #XboxOneX pic.twitter.com/ZRs05JdRKD

— Xbox (@Xbox) June 11, 2017

Source: Xbox (Twitter)

The beautiful ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisp’ comes to Xbox One

Little over a year since physical copies of the award-winning Ori and the Blind Forest hit stores, and we finally have a sequel. Yep, Ori and the Will of the Wisp looks to be an even more sumptuous two-dimensional platformer, and will arrive with Xbox One X optimizations as well as a 4K option if you have the appropriate hardware. We’re hoping it will be a little bit more forgiving than the original — or maybe that was half of the charm? There’s no word yet on release date, but we’ll update you when we know more.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!