Towerborne, a Microsoft first-party release, somewhat strangely launched on Steam before Xbox earlier this year - but the team is still preparing for a console and Game Pass launch at the beginning of next year. And, ahead of that wider release, the Steam Early Access build has just seen a major winter update.
Live now, Towerborne's third Early Access update — titled Grandeur — brings holiday themed decorations to the title, alongside a special story quest, additional language support, and a bunch of other events, enemies and loot.
The update has been fully detailed over on Steam, which also introduces the game's "12 days of Grandeur" event; bringing daily gifts to Early Access players this month. Towerborne is certainly getting into the holiday spirit here with this update, but are you joining in?
Well, while we'd like to join in with the festive cheer, we're still ultimately waiting for that console and Xbox Game Pass release to come in early 2025 - before properly jumping back in. We enjoyed our time but the Steam version back in September, so, we're keen to get stuck back in soon and see what's changed with the Xbox release!
Are you still looking forward to this 2025 first-party title? Throw your thoughts on it down below.
Comments 7
I’d completely forgotten about Towerborne.
2025 already looking busy for Microsoft - Avowed, Towerborne, South of Midnight, Doom The Dark Ages, CoD 2025, Fable?
Having whiplash from high expectations to really low to meh… Xbox really have not marketed their games at all….
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@oopsiezz Yeah I don't even know where to start. First off, dude who hurt you? Like did you personally fund this game? Why are you acting so personally offended and for that matter wishing such negative things on the developers and anyone who likes the game?
Second off literally everything you're complaining about isn't a thing. The devs (who are the banner saga devs for crying out loud) already confirmed two things 1) when the game fully releases it'll have a complete reset. No one will have a leg up on anyone. And 2) If you chose to pay money for the game and purchase a founders pack to support their development and provide feedback for early access, all your cosmetics will transfer over.
The game is in early access on Steam because Xbox Game Preview is terrible and the game is in REALLY early access. This is the devs first attempt (AFAIK) at making a multiplayer live service game, and they have a LOT to learn from. It's not just the development but managing a live service in general and seeing how gamers respond to certain features. A lot of devs and publishers have tried live service on a whim and crashed and burned. When Towerborne has its full release on Xbox and PC you'll be glad people tested it (and paid money to test it so all that goes back into development), and you don't have to worry about people who have been playing on early access Steam starting the game with end game level characters. If you aren't able to or choose not to buy any founder's pack and play early access on Steam, then yeah I guess you miss some cosmetics but who the heck cares? If you do choose to buy the founder's pack and play early access on Steam the devs have stated that cosmetics will transfer over.
Honestly reading your rant I remember why I don't like being called a gamer. I don't know why anyone would wish ill on a game. If you don't like it, ignore it. No need to openly act so self entitled and how a tantrum (really I'm surprised you're not embarrassed having wrote that). From my perspective you're essentially complaining about the devs trying to have the best full release possible on Xbox (or even the best game preview release (again that program just isn't good enough for how current of an experimental stage Towerborne is in. Maybe they'll do a game preview down the line, but they can't now). The other alternative would have been the devs just not releasing towerborne anywhere, testing the live service aspect and overall game in a vacuum, and then having a poor release (or maybe like infinite they'd have a great release and then completely fumble the live service aspect). I'm also not surprised at the steam player count, because it's made very clear that founders are paying money for an early access game that will eventually be free AND will not have progress transfer over to the full release. The only people playing it are those who want to give it extra support and help it have the best release. Everyone else is waiting for the full release in Xbox and PC. The cosmetics are the literal ONLY reward early access players are getting for helping the game have its best full release.
@Feffster My gut tells me Fable will be pushed to 2026 but we'll see. Hopefully 2025 is also when we see the ABK backlog make more of an appearance on game pass.
I am hoping that Xbox has something else cooking for the first six months of 2025 (either south of midnight or doom). Xbox still really is lax on the first six months. 2024 it was only really Hellblade 2 (which was great) and 2023 was actually kinda packed but such a mixed bad. Hi Fi Rush and the AOE port were fantastic. Minecraft legends was literally mid, and then Redfall was so bad it dragged Arkane Austin to the grave with it (seriously from what was said about that game's development, it killed the studio internally with the studio head pushing against devs who wanted the entire development rebooted. Then there's the fact this was their first game after prey (and prey had a lot of Arkane Lyon collaboration so I think Redfall was Austin's first solo game)). Anyway it didn't go well... hoping Xbox finds it's stride next year. I'd say this year all the first party games were good to great to amazing. But no really terrible or even mid releases. The worst was MS Flight Sim and that was only a botched launch (and apparently because the dev studio thought no one would play it 🙄🙄🙄 (whatever)); the game is otherwise amazing though. I want Xbox to have a similar experience going forward with a much better spread out release schedule. Avowed in February should be great (based on all the current reviews and fact that it's obsidian and that they have extra time to polish a finished game), but something else big in those first six months would be amazing. They could also take the in between months and (if rumors are true) do stuff like bring back xbox backwards compatibility for ABK drops. That'd keep momentum going without being a huge effort.
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@WildConcept6 judging my his further rant below, I think someone pissed in his cheerios. Toxic.
I ignored him so I don't have to see it.
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