Spyro, Persona 6, and Crazy Taxi: the best trailers of Xbox Games Showcase 2026

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Crazy Taxi: World Tour – from a pretty crazy showcase (Sega)

Microsoft might be going back to having exclusives again, but only for certain games, as new trailers for Halo, Fable, State Of Decay 3, Senua, and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 make clear.

It’s still uncertain if Nintendo is going to have a Direct this month, so the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday evening may have been the last event of the not-E3 season, following Sony’s State of Play and Summer Game Fest on Friday night. Pleasingly, none of the showcases have been duds and Xbox certainly made headlines by announcing Gears Of War: E-Day as an Xbox console exclusive.

The wisdom of that move remains to be seen but what was sensible, was that Xbox boss Asha Sharma was only featured for a moment (to introduce the idea of E-Day being an exclusive), with Matt Booty only turning up at the end.

Everything else was just trailer after trailer, including announcements for new first and third party games. Everything listed below, except for Gears Of War and Clockwork Revolution, are also coming out for PlayStation 5, so while Microsoft is embracing console exclusivity once again it is only for select games.

Fable

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Microsoft recently announced that Fable is being moved to February, in order to stay out of the way of GTA 6, but on Sunday they gave it a specific release date of the 23rd. The trailer features some really fantastic graphics, easily some of the best seen so far on the Xbox Series X. Although we’re still concerned that nothing in any of the footage has been very funny, despite a lot of performative swearing. Given how many British comedians are involved that seems concerning, but hopefully it will all work out in the end.

Halo: Campaign Evolved

As was already known this is a remake of the original story campaign from the very first Halo game, but without any multiplayer (which it seems fair to speculate might be coming later as some sort of separate release). Sunday’s trailer revealed a release date of July 28, and confirmation that it is still coming to PlayStation 5, as well as three all-new missions – although the barrage of wisecracking dialogue in the one they showed seemed very out of keeping with the tone of the original game.

Resonance: A Plague Legacy

Focus Interactive are really knocking out these A Plague Tale spin-offs at quite a rate, even if their connection with the original games seems to diminish with each new title. As ever, the graphics look great and while it’s not clear what the story is about there seems to be some very violent gladiatorial combat and a lot of Uncharted-esque platforming. It will launch on August 27 this year.

Persona 4 Revival

A remake of Persona 4 has been on the cards for a while now, with rumours that it and Persona 6 would debut at the Xbox Games Showcase – which turned out to be exactly right. Persona 4 was initially a PlayStation 2 game, so the glow-up here is considerable, even if it still looks the same as you remember it. The most important reveal was the release date of February 18 next year.

State Of Decay 3

We don’t think it does much for hopes that this won’t be another janky mess of an open world game when the first trailer in years has some very obvious pop-in problems (look at the foreground at around the 30 second mark). That never hurt the popularity of the other games though and this does seem to be taking a more serious tone, with talk of the undead actively hunting players, rather than just wandering around aimlessly. It’ll be out sometime next year.

Bad Magpie

We thought this was going to be a sequel to Untitled Goose Game but it’s just something similar from a completely different developer and, somewhat surprisingly, it’s an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive. We’re not sure magpies have quite the same reputation for being horrible as geese do, but this looks to be a fun sandbox style game. If it has the amount of freedom and interactivity that the trailer implies it could be something special, and it’s out next year.

Wo Long 2: Wings Of Ember

We’d say 2023’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was the least interesting game that Team Ninja has made recently but it was still okay, even if it was basically Nioh but not as good. The trailer for the sequel does look like an improvement though, so hopefully they can address some of the issues with the rubbish loot system and repetitive enemies. It’s a multiformat release and will be out early 2027.

Senua

Although this is set in the Hellblade universe it’s just called Senua, although we assume it is intended to be a sequel to the 2024 game. Despite the excellent graphics, that game was a major step down from the original, so it’s going to be very interesting to see if this addresses the complaints about simplistic combat and flawed storytelling. There’s no way to tell that from just the trailer but there does seem to be more overt use of magic, since Senua is apparently trapped in purgatory. The game is out sometime next year.

Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations

Although the trailer doesn’t actually explain what this is, it is in fact an expansion and not a separate game. It’ll be out on July 7 and that new javelin/lance looks like a lot of fun, even if the last thing the series needs is more overly serious storytelling. Despite that, The Dark Ages was a decent sequel/prequel/whatever and hopefully this DLC will give some indication about where the franchise will be going next.

Crazy Taxi: World Tour

Fans would’ve known exactly what this was the second The Offspring’s song All I Want began. As great as the original arcade and Dreamcast game was it’s such a simple concept (drive from point A to B as quickly as possible) that Sega was never able to create a worthwhile sequel at the time, let alone now. This is a good trailer though and gives plenty of hope that even if not much has changed the novelty of an old school arcade game in the modern era will carry it. There’s no release date but it’s out next year.

Magicians: The Devil’s Deal

We haven’t played a lot of Uppercut Games’ previous work (2018’s City Of Brass was okay, as a sort of first person Prince Of Persia) but this looked pretty interesting, as you play a stage magician granted actual magic powers, that involves things like trick cards and turning the world upside down. It was one of multiple games in the showcase that gave off Dishonored vibes with its visuals, but it seems to be more of a straight action game. It’s due out next year.

Valor Mortis

The makers of Ghostrunner return with what was easily the strangest concept of the night, as you work for Napoleon (voiced by Vincent Cassel), who is using zombie soldiers to continue his European campaign. Or at least we think that’s what’s going on. If you ever dreamed of a Sharpe video game, but with added zombies, you could be in luck, especially as it’s out on September 24 this year.

Vivarium

There were a number of interesting indie games during the showcase and, like Bad Magpie, this seems to be an Xbox Series X console exclusive, which in turn suggests Xbox is pursuing many such deals. It’s not entirely clear what’s going on but you seem to be living out a bucolic cosy game in the style of an 80s anime, except you’re actually trapped inside a vivarium on someone’s side table. Whether you interact with the people outside is unclear but the game’s out next year.

Persona 6

After so many years of waiting the reveal of Persona 6 was, inevitably, a disappointment. There was no release date, no indication of what it’s about or what it will look like, just the fact that it exists. That’s just how the previous games were unveiled though and now the cat’s out of the bag we should see more detailed updates fairly soon. The most interesting take away from the reveal though is that the game will be available day one on Game Pass, which must’ve cost Microsoft a lot to organise.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond

There have been rumours of Toys for Bob making a new Spyro game before, but when everything is leaked all the time, this was about as close as you can get to a surprise nowadays. Toys for Bob made Crash Bandicoot 4 and many of the Skylanders games, that also starred Spyro, so they’re the best team for the job, even if the trailer above is very brief. The game’s out next spring though, so it shouldn’t be too long before we learn more.

Clockwork Revolution

This isn’t the first time InXile’s action role-player has been in an Xbox Games Showcase, although this trailer takes a surprising amount of time to introduce the main gimmick, of being able to travel back in time to alter the future and, presumably, help with the heists that seem to be the main focus of the gameplay. It’s an interesting premise but it sounds like a difficult thing to design, that could easily go wrong. It’s out in 2027 but, as was made clear, only on Xbox and PC.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Matt Booty turned up at the end of the showcase to talk about Call Of Duty, which was probably not what most people were hoping for in terms of a mic drop ending. The game had already been revealed before, so this time the focus was the DMZ extraction mode.

Established shooters have had trouble making a success of the extraction concept so far but apparently Activision are keen to give it another go. The game will be released on all formats, including Nintendo Switch 2, on October 23.