The biggest reveals from Xbox Developer Direct

polygon.com:

Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks showed off what’s coming to Xbox and PC this year during a new Xbox Developer Direct on Wednesday. In addition to promised reveals around MachineGames’ Indiana Jones game and Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed, the Xbox team also brought a surprise or two.

Here’s a roundup of the biggest news from the latest Xbox showcase, in case you can’t watch the event in full.

Wolfenstein developer MachineGames and Bethesda Softworks revealed their new game based on the Indiana Jones franchise, an original adventure called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, The Great Circle will send Indy on a globetrotting adventure to solve an unraveling mystery.

Joining Indy on his adventure will be a new character, Gina, an investigative reporter. His primary antagonist? A villain named Emmerich Voss, who appears to be after the same artifact as Dr. Jones.

MachineGames showed off plenty of gameplay, which featured first-person whipping and gunplay, puzzle solving at ancient temples, and death defying stunts. At one point in the gameplay, Indy jumps from the wings of one biplane to another, and later scales a zeppelin. Indy’s trademark bullwhip can be used for traversal, and also as a weapon or a means of distracting enemies.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to Windows PC and Xbox Series X sometime in 2024, and will launch day one on Game Pass.

Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds studio Obsidian Entertainment showed off gameplay from its new first-person, fantasy action role-playing game Avowed, illustrating how players will use a variety of melee weapons, firearms, and magic spells in their adventures through the Living Lands. Obsidian talked up Avowed’s combat, promising not just hacking and slashing, but real-time tactical decisions regarding how to battle enemies.

That decision making will also extend to the narrative. Obsidian showed off character interactions