A new year in gaming is upon us, which means plenty of Xbox reveals to get excited about, games to dig into, and knowing Microsoft - industry-shaking announcements to bare witness to in 2025.

With a busy 2024 now behind us, then, we're looking ahead to the next 12 months in the world of Xbox. What will the team deliver on this year? Will all of its scheduled-for-2025 games actually make it out this year? Only time will tell!

Without further ado, here are some Pure Xbox predictions for Team Green in 2025:

1. Microsoft's 'This Is An Xbox' Campaign Will March On

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OK, this is a pretty safe bet to start out with here, but we can't see Xbox pumping the brakes on its new 'This is an Xbox' ad campaign anytime soon. Just this week, the team used its new imagery in tandem with an LG TV announcement, and yeah - we think this is going to be a very regular thing throughout 2025. We might not be quite close enough to start talking about next-gen consoles in detail yet, but that won't stop Microsoft pushing Xbox onto new devices in the next 12 months.

2. Gears of War: E-Day Gets A Massive Blowout At The Xbox Summer Showcase

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We're not ready to commit to a prediction about Gears of War: E-Day actually coming out this year, but we feel very confident that we're going to see extended gameplay during the summer months of 2025. Gears has always liked a big E3-style showcase, and with E-Day being teased during last year's show, we reckon it's time for a major showing this year. We're talking a big old 10+ minute breakdown of campaign gameplay from The Coalition - come on, we deserve it after waiting so long since Gears 5!

3. If Fable Launches This Year, It'll Be A Big Success For Xbox

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Playground Games has been a bit of a revelation since Xbox acquired the studio a good few years ago now, but they've stuck purely to the Forza Horizon series so far. However, in recent times they've been tasked with rebooting Fable - and we have faith that the British studio will do a stellar job. Sure, it's been in development for a while now and sure, we've not seen much gameplay footage yet, but we've got a good feeling about this one being an all-time Xbox great. Unfortunately we're not quite as confident in Fable actually launching in 2025, but for what it's worth - here's hoping!

4. Forza Horizon 5 Will Be Xbox's Next Major PS5 Port

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Sticking to Playground Games for a minute here, Xbox's PS5 ports are clearly going to continue into 2025, and we reckon the next major one will be 2021's Forza Horizon 5. We've heard rumblings of this happening already — one rumour even said that the PS5 version is pretty much ready to go — so we're saying that 2025 is the year Forza makes its PlayStation debut. That would mark the first of Xbox's holy trinity (Halo, Gears, Forza) to make its way over - something we think is bound to happen sooner rather than later.

5. Xbox Handheld Sees Early Prototypes Leak

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Recently, Phil Spencer confirmed that Xbox's handheld system is still a few years out, but we know work is underway on the device right now over at Microsoft HQ. That HQ isn't always the most water-tight though, and we could easily see some early prototype work leaking out this year. Whether that's via external reports or other means, chatter about the Xbox portable will go on in 2025 - and we think this year will deliver some rough prototype work on the system in some form or another.

6. Rare's Everwild Remains MIA In 2025

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Last week, we asked our readers if Rare's next shared-world adventure Everwild would be seen sometime in 2025, but truth be told - we just can't see it happening. Yes, the dev team shared a brand-new screenshot from the game at the tail end of last year, but we still have no real idea what this game is, and it very much feels like Rare is still figuring that out as well. We feel confident in predicting that Everwild won't release this year, and truth be told, we're almost as sure that we won't see any gameplay footage in 2025 either. Maybe 2026 will be Rare's year, eh?

7. Classic Call Of Duty Finally Arrives On Xbox Game Pass

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We predicted something similar last year (at least for the summer showcase anyway) but 2025 has to be the year that classic COD comes to Xbox Game Pass, right? We've started to see PC versions of older series entries show up on the Microsoft Store, which is a good indication that Xbox is planning broader Game Pass releases for these titles. And, now that Black Ops 6 is out and has proved to be a huge hit for Microsoft, we can see them plugging up the quieter months with some old-school Call of Duty on XGP.

8. 'Microsoft Gaming' Gets Another Leadership Shakeup

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Xbox execs seem to be moving about all over the place as of late, and with Microsoft's gaming enterprise becoming somewhat unwieldy after multiple big acquisitions, we can see this continuing into 2025. Some of us at the PX offices also have our suspicions that long-time Xbox boss Phil Spencer could actually move on from the company sometime soon - but 2025 may be a bit early for that. Call it a hunch, but certain decisions as of late just don't jive with what Phil has always said during his time as the chief! We'll just have to wait and see about the future of Xbox leadership, but we think more changes are afoot.

9. Xbox Finally Unveils The Elite Controller Series 3

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We've been waiting for an Xbox Elite Controller refresh this entire generation so far, and it's got to come sooner rather than later, right? There's always a chance that Microsoft wants to save this reveal until next generation, but given that the Elite Series 2 launched in 2019 (the final year of Xbox One), it's not that unreasonable to expect an Elite Series 3 to do something similar. Whatever Microsoft might do with this thing, we just hope Xbox finally sorts out the reliability issues that plagued its first two controllers.

10. Future Starfield Expansions Cancelled To Focus On The Elder Scrolls 6

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Starfield: Shattered Space hardly set the world alight last year, and with that being the only expansion that Bethesda has formally committed to in its premium DLC packs, we think the team will stop there. We have heard that more expansions have been in the team's plans at some point, but with the first DLC's mixed reception and the world's ravenous appetite for The Elder Scrolls 6, we think Bethesda Game Studios goes all hands on deck with that one during 2025 and beyond. As for when TES6 actually launches? We'll probably be waiting a good while yet.

And, there you have it - those are just 10 of our Xbox predictions as Microsoft heads into 2025. Of course, the year ahead will no-doubt provide some big surprises — we look forward to seeing how wrong we were in a year's time — so, let's all see how 2025 shakes out for Microsoft. Here's to another big year in the world of Xbox!

Throw some of your 2025 Xbox predictions in the comments section down below.