Poll: How Would You Grade The Xbox Developer Direct 2024?

B for me. Hellblade 2 looks great with a release date soon. Avowed shaping up nicely. Indiana Jones looks perfect.
But Ara not coming to console is a shame and Visions of Mana just felt like filler. Not an MS Studios game and not even coming to Game Pass!
But the good outweighs the bad.

B for me. Was very good.

Most looking forward to Avowed.

A- No shadow drop but a very strong show overall.

This presentation changed my mind about Avowed. I was very uninterested about it, but now I want to know more.

As a Seiken Densetsu fan, Visions of Mana is giving me wonderful expectations. It looks beatiful, so I hope it delivers.

Ara, Hellblade 2, and Indiana Jones seems solid. Great work and presentation!

@Kaloudz My man, I am with you, it was a great show. MS is getting good at these events, uh?

Indy stole that. I hoped it would be good but that just blew me away. Avowed also looks WAY better than last I saw of it

That was a strong presentation! Looks like 2024 will be another great year!

I was thinking avowed stole the show until Indie looked like it was made specifically for me. The game looks amazing! I was hoping it was 3rd person but after seeing this trailer I was mistaken. 1st person whipping looks like loads of fun.

Avowed was the standout ,hopefully if they have meaningful quests this could be fantastic ,ara its pc only so meh ,hellblade looks very walky talky the combat looks really slow and laborious, although it does look fantastic ,bit of a marmite game ,and indy...indy, why didn't they go for a third person view ,couldve had an uncharted beater there ,it looks,I dunno,just ok...so where was the shadow drops on game pass ,and how many people thought when they saw the square enix logo, they thought they was getting ff7 😂😂

I voted A. The show was amazing. Can’t wait to get a release date for Indy!!

A very strong A, it was well presented and I like the focus on just a few good looking games than an endless stream of filler content. Indiana Jones was the highlight but in all honesty, I can see myself playing all of those games

I went B very good show.
Indy stole it for me.
But Avowed is looking a lot better now.
Hellblade 2, not sure need to see more, it will either amaze or not for me.

Indy looks so🔥🔥🔥🔥. Avowed looks amazing too. Very happy with this. Easy A.

I’m clearly not the target audience for this showing lol. Indiana Jones is the only thing I care about this year from them, although I’m keeping an eye on Stalker 2… which wasn’t here lol (can understand why tho).

Glad others are excited for those other games though.

Edit: I rewatched the Avowed portion as I had to watch it without audio at first. It looks really good, consider me very interested in that game now haha.

Twas a very good showcase. Very well presented. Hellblade looks amazing, as does Indiana Jones. The one I think I am most looking forward to is Avowed, which looks very good.

Overall, I awarded it a Z because of the lack of any Gears of War announcements 😂

Machine games never ceases to amaze me. Indy looks really amazing and to me captures the essence of the original trilogy. Also Avowed and Hellblade 2 are shaping up to be brilliant. I'm a bit skeptical about Ara but as a Civ and 4x fan it seems a bit new and hopefully a wonderful experience.

Only Avowed for me but it was pretty good: B.

Avowed hellblade 2 and indiana Jones all look fantastic no interest In the other 2 games to be honest be they still might be good was an amazing direct for me better than last years with the mess of redfall and starfield

Indiana Jones 🤤🤤🤤🤤

As I watched Indy I thought why first person oh why.
But as it went in I sort of got it, but my personal preference would have been third person tomb raider style.
I guess playing it will really tell.

Indy looks amazing and I can't believe they actually got Harrison Ford, looks like a cinematic experience I'll be hooked on for a while ♥️♥️♥️💚💚💚💚 I can't wait

Great direct. From the games shown it's gonna be another great year for XBox. Anything else is just gravy.

Though I'm not interested in every game shown I had to put an A on this presentation. The format is great and all the games looks incredible. I'll be buying Hellblade 2, The Great Circle and Awoved for sure. Awesome showcase.

A - Really good show. Avowed looks like an excellent stop gap before ES6. I’m not at all fussed about Hellblade as I found the first one pretty boring but Indiana Jones looks excellent. Ara seems to be pushing 4x into the future and I was really impressed with it so I’m disappointed it won’t be day one on console but as long as it comes eventually I can wait.

Gonna give it a B, mostly because everything is coming out at the end of the year, and exclusives wise it seems we'll only have Hellblade till that Sep-Dec window.

But also partly because Avowed didn't tell me anything actually "new". 90% of it was the standard RPG buzzwords and the last 10% was talking about combat without explicitly stating how it was going to fluidly handle melee, guns, magic.

Absolute A for the bit with Todd Howard stealing the golden item in the background.

C for me

I wasn't interested in Avowed or Ara anyway.

Visions of Mana doesn't interest me in the slightest.

Hellblade 2 looks amazing and I'm looking forward to it.

But the big thing for me was Indiana Jones. Unpopular opinion: I'm really disappointed that it's going to be mainly 1st person.

I understand why they've done, I was just really looking forward to a really good 3rd person adventure game 😐

Don't get me wrong, I'll play it and probably enjoy it, but probably not as much as I was expecting to.

E. Ara was the only interesting thing for me, and that's stretching it.

I’m harsh but I would give it a C. Hellblade 2 and Indy look great. Avowed, I’m not sure about.

I’m sorry but I can’t stand the people working for these companies and I zone out when they talk, which is what these presentations are sadly, them waffling on for 50 mins. Driving around the office on scooters, and chilling in hammocks under their desks, they’ve got it so good.

C, they had a decent showing but with May being the earliest release and everything else being 2nd half (mostly September - December), it would've been better if this event was done a few months later with them adding in the Fallout 4 remaster as a shadow drop.

F - Why cant they just copy Nintendo Directs like everyone else does?

I am interested in Avowed but got bored within a few minutes and decided I would prefer to read a round up, rather than watch this crap. In the 4 minutes I did watch I don't feel like I learned anything that they could not have shown me in a regular trailer.

I think if you want 3rd person you have Tomb Raider or Uncharted. This is doing its own thing and if its anywhere near as fun as Wolfenstein we are in for a treat. It’s edged out Avowed as the one i’m most excited for now.

I'll go with a B. No disappointments but no real surprises. Indy blew me away though.

Very enjoyable Direct and the reveal of Indiana Jones was easily the highlight. I’d put it in the A-/B+ range.

Indy was the highlight for me. Avowed looks much better than last time we got to see it

B- for me. Hellblade and indy did it for me. Still on the fence on avowed, still looks like a vr game to me. Ara looks decent. Not a huge fan of 4x strategy games. Visions of mana looked super generic as opposed to origins of the franchise in secret of mana.

Nothing bad to say about hellblade being a smaller tight experience and for a discount starting price, but why did it take 7 years for a smaller game?

Indy looked great, which is exciting since Uncharted has ended for now and I'm eager for something to play in that space (plus I'm a huge Indy fan). This might be most most anticipated Xbox game of the entire Series gen so far.

But I have to be honest, the rest of the show did nothing for me.

What. A. [Expletive]. Year.

Microsoft is coming into 2024 swinging (in more ways than one)!

B from me.

Avowed was very skyrim, but thats fine with me!

Hellblade looked fantastic again, but I have some gameplay concerns and its dissapointing its a shorter experience.

When we cut to the squate enix logo I bet I wasnt the only one hoping for more than a mana title. Looked fun though!

Arta felt like it didnt belong, but it looks like a great evolution of civ games.

Indiana Jones stole the show and was proper exciting to see.

A really good showing, shame theres nothing imminent.

@Rmg0731 They are pushing Unreal engine 5 and its facial imaging software to the Edge and back… also you can tell they are going for the 10 and nothing else… got to admire the passion they are putting into it. The combat will be the deciding factor for most fans though… if they get that right then in the GOTY mix.

It gets a B from me, but that's only because I was secretly hoping for South of Midnight to make shadow appearance😁. Apart from that it was great.
And Hellblade looks absolutely incredible.

I’m going to be honest. I wasn’t blown away by any of it. The vibe Avowed gave off from the first teaser showed a much darker world and looked like it could be a next gen Skyrim.

Indiana Jones should have been a third person game and graphically looks bland compared to last gen’s Uncharted 4.

Hellblade being a digital only release is a bad omen for physical lovers like myself, and Ara is not suited for my tastes. And Square Enix’s surprise showing was an already announced multiplatform game.

I’m glad there was something for others to get excited about and look forward too, but for me personally, nothing really grabbed me.

Final score: C.

None of these games are for me. It's nice to see the developers full of passion but nothing really stood out or called to me. Closest one would probably be avowed but even that just reminded me of that EA game that failed to make waves.

A solid B from me. Avowed looked nice but the combat looks really slow and uninspiring, it reminded me of an old PS3 era Move game. Hellblade looked good but the presentation for that felt very rushed to me. Indy was definitely the star of the show by far. I was sceptical when they said it was first person but the footage won me over and I think it was the correct decision. The camera transition to third person when interacting looked a bit clunky and felt unnecessary but otherwise I thought they captured the look and feel of the movies perfectly.

Absolutely A for me. 3 out of 5 games I’ll play day 1 (or weekend 1 for that matter). And I really dig the format of giving a spotlight to the people that made the games. This must be so thrilling to them.

This’ll be an awesome year for xbox. Especially if they sprinkle in a little bit of acti-blizz on gamepass.

I chucked in a B because I thought everything was presented well but there’s nothing I’m looking forward to. Great effort!

Indy looked great the strategy game is great. The hellblade game I have no interest in. The Mana game could be good but the remake form the ps4 was terrible and you just never know with SQ these days. Finally Avowed looks not for me it just doesn't look good Which is sad I loved both pillars games and fallout and even shadow complex, But Avowed just looked kinda cheap. Hopefully I will play it and it will be good they def have street cred with me.

B for me, enjoyed it but not quite as slick as last year.

Indy looks cool, looking forward to Hellblade and Avowed but it would have been good to know what hardware everything that was shown was running on…

Are they games I won't play yes (not my type of games personally other than maybe Indy, but Hellblade/Avowed showed some great stuff in them), but that doesn't effect my grade I think they are great.

For showcasing I thought it was a B rating I'd say how they went about it.

I liked a lot of what was presented in it. Each game showed off just enough and their cool elements to the games gameplay wise, fair visuals and while some roughness to them I can tell they will turn out great with polish.

Except for Ara Ara… all other games caught my attention.

@BrilliantBill That was mad funny.

I'm surprised Stalker 2 was not mentioned. It's coming out September 5th supposedly. The rest was real good, but I highly doubt all of these are coming out this year. At least one gets delayed and at least three or more of these turn out real bad. Prove me wrong Microsoft.

Avowed looked bad. Combat has no weight to it. They didn't learn from better examples like Ghostwire or Vermintide. The textures are a joke and they used every god damn blur filter they could find on top of what seems to be a horrible TAA.

Hellblade 2, still pretty much on course, no complaints here.

Visions of Mana, nice surprise. Combat looks fun. Looking forward to it.

Ara: Another Civ ... great. Dunno. Could be ok.

Indiana Jones: Oh boy ... First person is a no-go for such a game. Think Uncharted, think Tomb Raider. An iconic person has to be shown in action, and I'm not meaning just while climbing up stuff or some such. I am not Indiana Jones and I will never be him. In fact, I don't want to be him. Putting me as a player in first person does not change these fact. We grew up watching Indi do stuff in movies, not by following the action through his eyes, for crying out loud! How weird would that have been? Same goes for this game. First person projection is a stupid antiquated notion, that never worked in the first place. Furthermore: Characters look weird, unconvincing, outdated - the uncanny valley kicks in hard here. Some of the textures are really muddy. I'm not convinced the gameplay will be good, nor have I seen any evidence that the riddles will be. This looks like a typical license title that will ultimately bomb hard on arrival.

Show was a C at best. Very safe, diverse, nothing actually special. As expected.

C from me. Avowed looks dated. Ara does absolutely nothing for me. Visions of Mana is great but will play on PS5. Hellblade looks good but still a lack of gameplay shown. Indiana Jones saved it for me.

Lots OF DEVS WAFFELLING on, but I suppose their trying to sell you the game.
Highlight for me - Hellblade 2 , I'm a Ninja Theory fan , have all their games. , but I may not get this one as I only buy Physical for mainstream releases. , i don't mind a fiver or tenner for a indie , so unless it comes down in a special in the future i may not play it.

Indiana was ok looking, but yeah the whole first person view thing has me put me off.
Xbox needs some good third person adventure games , its sorely lacking. Sony has so many franchises that use 3rd person and Xbox has this obsession with First person view.

Not that I am adverse to all first person games. but feel some just don't work. And having such a iconic character, players want to see the protagonist.

There's a reason why the likes of Spiderman, Horizon zero dawn , Red Dead and others sell by the bucketloads.

Avowed seemed interesting and though first person it looks like it suits the style.

Visons of Mana , though a third party game., looks like a fun and mesmerising world with great design and is on my watch list.

I've only had my Series X less then three months and i find myself not playing it as much as i thought. And am still putting a lot of time in my PS4 .

Starfield I tried on Gamepass, not taking me in , luckily i have loads of games from my Xone i can play .
if wasn't for Gotham Knights , Sega's Judgement , which im playing I could still be playing on my Xone.

Really do need more Series XS only games
Release HB2 physical then i be there day one.

Im watching this space.