Soapbox: Microsoft, We'd Love Another Surprise Xbox Game Pass Release At 'Developer Direct'

It's always exciting times when an Xbox event is coming up, isn't it? The big summer showcases are always good fun but I particularly liked Developer Direct last year. The more in-depth looks at those 2023 titles made Dev Direct a fantastic new format, and that surprise launch of Hi-Fi RUSH was just amazing. What a game to kick off 2023 and what a shadow drop by Xbox!

As we now start to turn our attention to the upcoming Developer Direct — arriving next week — I can't help but start wishing for another surprise of a similar nature. The current four-game lineup sounds brilliant with Ara: History Untold, Avowed, Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones confirmed for the livestream, but we'd all love another surprise, wouldn't we?

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Don't get me wrong - I'm not expecting a surprise. It's always good to keep expectations in-check for these sorts of events and I'll be doing so here. Still, some speculation about what could appear can't hurt.

What about this very heavily-rumoured Gears Collection, then? As a massive Gears fan I've tried my best not to buy into any sort of false hype on this, but I can't lie - it'd be an amazing surprise for Developer Direct! An announcement and release of this 'Gears Trilogy' plus a Gears 6 tease? That'd be one hell of a fifth development team to add to the roster.

Of course, what's probably more likely is one of Xbox's teams rocking up with a smaller surprise. Tango Gameworks has worked on plenty of big AAA projects, but Hi-Fi RUSH was definitely something more bite-sized from the Japanese team. How about something similar from one of Xbox's other studios? We have so many devs under the Xbox banner these days that pretty much any team could feasibly show up with a smaller surprise.

That's not including Activision Blizzard of course. Microsoft has confirmed that nothing from the freshly-acquired company will be present at Developer Direct - so we can definitely write them off the list. Hopefully they're fully integrated in the coming months and are ready for Xbox's inevitable Summer Showcase around June time.

One last pie-in-the-sky thought I'll put out there is something from id Software. It's been almost four years since DOOM Eternal released and we've not heard a peep on what the FPS experts are up to now. After the couple of recent Quake re-releases there's been some speculation that some sort of full-blown Quake reboot could be in the works. Hey, if it has a multiplayer focus it could easily shadow-drop in a similar way to The Finals! Never say never.

I'm very content with how Developer Direct '24 is shaping up right now, but Xbox, feel free to bring us another big surprise like last year. I'd absolutely love another shadow drop and I dare say most of the Xbox community would agree!

What do you want to see from Dev Direct 2024? Any potential 'fifth game' surprises? Discuss down in the comments below.