Yesterday, Xbox held the Partner Preview Showcase, where partner studios showed off a plethora of games coming to Xbox, PC, and Gamepass in the upcoming months and in 2025. They even had something for those of us with no patience and shadow-dropped an epic, no-lights-allowed multiplayer shooter for players to jump into immediately.
If you somehow missed catching the event, fret not because here at NAG, we’ve got you covered.
So, without further ado, here’s everything announced at the Xbox Partner Preview Showcase, including Subnautica 2, which our Editor just can’t stop talking about.
Alan Wake 2: The Lake House DLC
Release Date: 22 October 2024
Keeping things on theme with October, the Partner Showcase kicked off with an announcement for the final DLC for the psychological horror Alan Wake 2.
The Lake House gives players a bit of a different experience as they take control of FBC Agent Kiran Estevez, as she is called to investigate a disturbance at The Lake House, an FBC facility hinted at during the standard Alan Wake playthrough.
The DLC promises more dark horror like the original Alan Wake game, and the trailer pretty much proves it.
Cronos: The New Dawn
Release Date: 2025
After the massive success that has been the Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team comes another horror, third-person shooter giving us major Dead Space vibes.
The trailer is mainly cinematic, but the eerie setting already sets the scene, and I’m sure horror genre fans are drooling at the thought of playing Cronos.
We are also given a glimpse of gameplay, which shows players donning a spooky environmental suit, taking on zombie-like, dark dwellers, and probably absorbing people’s brains for their chess skills.
Blind Fire
Release Date: Available Now
A new multi-player, round shooter, ala Counter-Strike, was shadow-dropped during the Xbox Partner Preview Showcase.
Dubbed Blind Fire and developed by Double Eleven, this shooter takes things to the dark side. Every arena features minimal to no light sources. The idea here is to play more strategically, as using muzzle fire and flashlights and getting close to enemies is the only way to face them.
The game is available now for a reasonable R91 over on Steam.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
Release Date: 21 February 2025
While not as spooky, the next game announced still kept to the Halloween theme by dressing up our favourite yet ridiculous Yakuza clan members in pirate outfits.
Looking just as crazy as every other Like a Dragon game that Ryu Ga Gotoku has released in the past, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii takes players into the wild, pirate-run world of Midlantis, where players will attempt to work their way up to becoming the Pirate King.
Mouse: P.I. For Hire
Release Date: 2025
The first-person Cuphead-style jazzy shooter, Mouse: P.I. For Hire, has been tearing up the internet for months now with its development update videos and retro cartoon graphics.
Now, announced at the Xbox Partner Preview Showcase, the developers at Fumi Games have decided to release the game on more platforms than just an original PC launch. One new platform, obviously being Xbox.
Subnautica 2
Release Date: 2025
An entirely new alien planet and its deep dark waters await survival players in the next iteration of the Subnautica series.
Teased with a cinematic trailer, we don’t get much in terms of gameplay, but the trailer does set the scene for what players can expect in oxygen-deprived depths below.
Animal Well
Release Date: Available Now
After massive success across the Nintendo Switch and tearing up the charts on Steam, the weirdly eerie Metroidvania Animal Well has just been announced for Xbox consoles.
In the shadowy trailer shown during the Showcase, Shadow Donkey says the word shadow at least 15 times too many, but the news should be exciting for Xbox owners either way.
Edens Zero
Release Date: 2025
From the creator of Fairy Tail and Rave Master comes the space fantasy comic/anime Edens Zero by Hiro Mashima.
Originally a manga loved by fans worldwide, Edens Zero has been turned into a 3D-action RPG, putting players in the shoes of their favourite Edens Zero characters.
Battle powerful enemies as you venture forth through the depths of space and embark on exciting new planets.
Eternal Strands
Release Date: 2025
Master both fire and frost in this RPG epic where games play as Brynn, an elemental weaver, set on recovering her people’s cultural home.
The trailer shown during the Xbox Partner Preview Showcase gave us an exciting preview of what we can expect regarding gameplay from the game. From burning enemies, their limbs, the environment around them and virtually anything else to freezing wings, water, and the air around you to block, dodge and escape.
Then, throw in the ability to manipulate the gravity around it all and combine these three powers together in a game that looks like it holds great potential.
Mistfall Hunter
Release Date: 2025
My personal favourite announcement from the Showcase has to be Mistfall Hunter. While the trailer might make you think there is a sneaky new Elden Ring DLC in the works, you’d be wrong, but only slightly.
Mistfall Hunter is a new PvPvE game that hopes to combine the difficulty of soul-like games with the recent popularity of the extraction genre.
Get in, get loot, and get out, or die trying.
Wheel World
Release Date: 2025
Taking things down a gear from the dark, high-action games that had already been displayed, Wheel World looks to be a cosy bicycle riding simulator made even cosier with a colourful, engaging art style.
Race against other cyclists, customise your bicycle and explore this new, mysterious world.
Not everything may be as it seems, though, as the trailer ends with a mysterious burst of magical light.
Phasmophobia
Release Date: 29 October 2024
Watching through the slits of my fingers was the only way I could make it through this trailer as Kinetic Games announced their psychological horror hit will be making its way over to consoles, and more specifically Xbox, later this month.
Grab yourself some adult diapers. You’re going to need them.
The Legend of Baboo
Release Date: 2025
If you’ve ever wanted to play as a young kid, wielding the magical powers of mother nature riding on the back of the fluffiest giant Chow you’ve ever seen, The Legend of Baboo was made precisely for you.
Based on Turkish fables passed down through generations, The Legend of Baboo will allow players to play both as a young boy attempting to save his family from a mysterious evil and Baboo, his giant fluffy dog.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
Release Date: 2025
Riding the hype of the recent surge in souls-like games and the Chinese hit Black Myth: Wukong, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers announces itself loud and proud as yet another stunning-looking Asian-inspired souls-like.
The land of Shu is facing the end of the Ming dynasty, and an otherworldly plague called the Feathering has mutated creatures and humans alike. Use the power of the Feathering, hidden weapons and various fighting styles as you attempt to reclaim your memory and find out what has happened to the world.
FBC: Firebreak
Release Date: 2025
From the creators of Alan Wake and Control comes Remedy’s first multiplayer game set in the same universe, FBC: Firebreak.
A three-player co-op first-person shooter puts players in the boots of the FBC’s most adaptable response unit, Firebreak, as you attempt to regain control of FBC headquarters as it faces a deadly, prolonged sieged by “otherwordly forces.”
And there you have it. A total of fifteen announcements from the Xbox Partner Preview Showcase that had me just as excited as the last, even if some of them were a little scary.
Are you keen on any of the games announced by Xbox’s partners? Let us know what in the comments below.