This year is a pretty turbulent year for Microsoft’s Xbox brand. They certainly have reason to ring in 2026 as this marks their silver anniversary as they celebrate 25 years in the gaming industry. At the same time, however, things haven’t been doing so well over at Xbox and, in a rather stunning bit of news, longtime head honchos Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond abruptly leaving the company. In their place, Asha Sharma, the head of Microsoft’s AI projects, and Matt Booty have been placed in charge of the Xbox brand.

Both Asha Sharma and Matt Booty have promised to win gamers back to the Xbox brand with a focus of creating exclusives for the Xbox console and that’s a good thing. But talk is cheap. What gamers want to see is actual action. So the Xbox Games Showcase during Not E3 was probably the best place and time to show if they’re going to keep their word. I did get to watch the Xbox Games Showcase over the weekend and… well, I sad to say I was kind of underwhelmed.

They did start off pretty strong, giving us a good look of Gears of War: E-Day. I have never been the biggest fan for the Gears of War series but, looking at the gameplay they did show off here, I get it. There is something really, shall we say, empowering about controlling some really big, buff dude who rushes right into the heat of battle, taking out enemies bursting from under the ground and not showing any fear. While this was a very strong start but, in retrospect, bringing this out as your first game might have been a mistake. I’ll talk about this more later on.

Anyway, we get Asha Sharma come out and announce that Gears of War: E-Day will be an Xbox exclusive before telling the viewers there are 25 other games in this presentation. Honestly, I do think she did an adequate job with her little speech. It was pretty much on par with how Phil Spencer would perform during the previous Xbox Games Showcases. Yes, it was too scripted and polished, lacking any mirth and humor but this is how Phil Spencer did these things as well. Still, it’s much better than what Sarah Bond used to do during these videos!

After that, we got some rather heavy hitters. They showed off a cinematic trailer for the new Fable and, while I do think it looked interesting, I do have an issue with the mixture of tones here. The trailer shows a character named Isabel, the Hero of Wraithmarsh, recalling about her tragic past and how heroes don’t really know how to wield power properly and how a hero must make hard choices. Some pretty dark stuff. But they also splice in some looks of whimsy like talking boulders and colorful costumes, making Fable look like a fairy tale than a dark fantasy. Now, I know a game can be two things at once but they really should have followed one direction.

Things kind of went off the deep end after this for me as the Xbox Games Showcase became more like the First Person Shooter showcase! While I do like a good first person shooter now and then, overloading a good segment of your show to just this genre felt monotonous! To be fair, they did show off some non-FPS games here and there like Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Persona 4 Revival, Bad Magpie and JOIN US, to name a few. But those felt like a few crumbs when it came to the feast of first person shooters this show basically was! Okay, there were some top-notch FPS games shown like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Metro 2039 but, after a while, they all just kind of blended together as they all started to look similar.

Thankfully, they did taper the FPS trend by the midpoint of the show and they started showing off a much more variety of game types. In fact, there were several games which definitely caught my attention. The upcoming Crazy Taxi World Tour looks just as fun as the original but with updated visuals, more cities and an actual story mode? Count me in! Ninja Theory‘s upcoming Senua game looks like it can rival God of War: Laufey when it comes to visceral and exciting combat! Probably the most visual appealing game to me was Serenity Forge‘s Vivarium. The game uses hand-drawn high-definition old-timey anime sprites and backgrounds and it looks amazing! Think more Candy Candy the original Urusei Yatsura and less Ouran High School and, well, the modern Urusei Yatsura remake, I guess. It looks so lighthearted and charming but I can’t help Vivarium will have a dark underbelly as they do pan out of the vivarium and show the enclosure is in the hallway of a dilapidated house.

The second to the last game they showcased was Clockwork Revolution. Now, I actually tried to predict that they would finally give a release day for Clockwork Revolution or maybe even shadowdrop it during the show. Well I was dead wrong as they still haven’t nailed a date for its release. But they did announce this was another Xbox Exclusive Title. But this is another issue I had with the entire show because hardly any of the games featured during the Xbox Games Showcase were actually Xbox Exclusives! You have Gears of War: E-Day, Vivarium (for some strange reason as this would be a perfect for the Nintendo Switch 2) and Clockwork Revolution. That’s it! I’m very surprised Senua isn’t an Xbox Exclusive but it is coming out on the PlayStation 5! So, what happened to the promise Asha Sharma and Matt Booty made about returning to a time when the Xbox system had exclusive content? I get it takes time to make those deals but this was the moment to really show them trying to fulfill this promise.

We then see Matt Booty exalt how great all of the reveals were during the show. Once again, Matt Booty comes off as too rehearsed here and he just doesn’t sound natural at all but he also doesn’t sound awful as well. I really do wish the Xbox people realize, when they come off as too perfect, it makes them sound phony. Hopefully, in the next show, they kind of loosen up a bit.

They then closed the Xbox Games Show with, of all things, the latest Call of Duty game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. And I have several problems with this! For one, this is a multiplatform game. I get Xbox publishes the Call of Duty games now and each game makes them a ton of money. But this is supposed to be the era where Xbox Exclusives are supposed to win back gamers! They should have closed the show with an Xbox Exclusive! So, this is why I think it was a mistake to open the show with Gears of War: E-Day. They should have reversed the order and open with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and close it out with Gears of War: E-Day. In fact, that would’ve been a nice segue to the Gears of War: E-Day presentation that followed the Xbox Games Show!

Second issue I have is, simply put, it’s a Call of Duty game! Yeah, I know it’s popular and all that. But I just don’t care for the franchise! Never was. Never will. That’s more of a me problem but that’s precisely why I take issue with it! Finally, the gameplay, while exciting, doesn’t really look inspired to me. Maybe I’m being biased because of my strong indifference to the franchise. But, as we already saw a whole bunch of first person shooters throughout the show already, it feels like I’ve seen this all before just a few minutes ago!

So, overall, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed with the Xbox Games Showcase overall. I was hoping for Asha Sharma and Matt Booty to take the reins of Xbox and really take it in a new direction. But this Xbox Games Showcase doesn’t make it seem like they are. Then again, they have just been on the job for a few months now. Change takes time so they might not want to rock the boat too much. Still, I would’ve appreciated a bigger course correction during the show.

What did you think of the latest Xbox Games Showcase? What games were you excited for? Let me know in the comments section below!