Xbox Game Studios: What's coming next from every first-party team? By Luke Albigés, 29 Mar 2023 FollowtopicsArticleLuke Albigés Curious what all the Xbox Game Studios teams will be bringing to an Xbox near you in 2023 and beyond? Here's a rundown of what we know all 22 first-party developers are working on right now...Xbox Game Studios has a whopping 22 development studios under Xbox and Bethesda umbrella, responsible for bringing us many of the best games on Game Pass, and some of the bigger studios comprise several teams to help put out even more first-party titles. Here's a look at everything we know each of the studios is working on at the moment.Xbox Game Studios games in development343 Industries: Halo Infinite (ongoing)Alpha Dog Games: Mighty Doom (ongoing)Arkane Studios: Redfall/UnknownBethesda Game Studios: Starfield/The Elder Scrolls VIThe Coalition: Gears 6/Gears of War Collection (rumoured)Compulsion Games: UnknownDouble Fine Productions: Unknownid Software: UnknownThe Initiative: Perfect DarkinXile Entertainment: Unannounced RPGMachineGames: Indiana JonesMojang Studios: Minecraft LegendsNinja Theory: Senua's Saga: Hellblade II/Project: MaraObsidian Entertainment: Avowed/The Outer Worlds 2Playground Games: Fable/Forza Horizon 5 DLCRare: EverwildRoundhouse Studios: Unknown/Redfall (support)Tango Gameworks: Ghostwire: TokyoTurn 10 Studios: Forza MotorsportUndead Labs: State of Decay 3World's Edge: Age of Empires IV (console)/Age of Mythology: RetoldXbox Game Studios Publishing: Contraband/Ara: History UntoldZeniMax Online Studios: The Elder Scrolls Online (ongoing)/Unknown343 Industries: Halo Infinite (ongoing)Halo Infinite launched in late 2021 and supporting the shooter appears to be 343's primary ongoing focus at this time. Season 3 is scheduled to begin in March and run until June, bringing new maps, modes, and features to the game, but that's as far as the current roadmap for the game goes. With E3 also set to return in June, it's likely we'll see more on the future of Infinite — and perhaps Halo in general — at the show. It's probable that early work will have begun on the studio's next project, but between the ongoing focus on supporting Infinite and a number of high-profile departures (including studio head Bonnie Ross), it's unlikely that whatever's next is particularly far along.Alpha Dog Games: Mighty Doom (ongoing)Bethesda's Alpha Dog is a mobile developer, and it soft-launched spin-off shooter Mighty Doom (which sadly does not support achievements) for several platforms and territories back in 2021, shortly after the Microsoft acquisition was completed. Work continues on the title, with its last update coming as recently as October, and the free-to-play game seems to have been received pretty well so will likely see further support and expansion in 2023. Alpha Dog will be an interesting studio to watch if/when Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal goes through, since it's a mobile-friendly team that would stand to benefit hugely from the mobile experience within ABK that has been one of the driving factors in Microsoft looking to acquire the group and expand its mobile operations.Arkane Studios: Redfall/UnknownArkane has two main teams, with Arkane Lyon having recently brought prior PlayStation exclusive Deathloop to Xbox and Arkane Austin putting the finishing touches to co-op shooter Redfall, expected to launch for Xbox Series X|S in May. We got another look at the new IP at Microsoft's Developer Direct showcasein January, where we saw solo and multiplayer gameplay which demonstrated "more of how you and your friends will take down bloodthirsty Vampires on the picturesque island of Redfall, Massachusetts." Redfall was announced to be launching in the first half of 2023, which has now been narrowed down to a specific May 2nd release. As for Arkane Lyon, no word on what they're up to yet, having not long finished up the Xbox Deathloop port, but hopefully we'll find out soon.Bethesda Game Studios: Starfield/The Elder Scrolls VIEpic space-faring RPG Starfield is set to be the big Xbox exclusive of 2023, after the ambitious adventure slipped from its original November 2022 release date. We now have a Starfield release date for September and will find out more during another Developer Direct in June. Bethesda also has The Elder Scrolls VI in the works, albeit seemingly on the back burner with most efforts going towards shipping Starfield. The follow-up to Skyrim was announced as being in "pre-production" with a teaser trailer almost five years ago, with Todd Howard confirming last year that it was still in pre-production. It's not due until after Fable, and that itself still feels like it could be some way out. Even further out, we have Fallout 5, which Howard separately mentioned would go into development when TES6 was done, so we won't be seeing Vault Boy again for quite some time, it seems...The Coalition: Gears 6/Gears of War Collection (rumoured)Last year, a bunch of different rumours emerged about what could be next for the Gears franchise, with some sources claiming that we'll see a Master Chief Collection-style remaster package of the earlier Gears of War games, but others (including the big GeForce Now leak which has been accurate a fair few times already) saying that it was Gears 6 that was in the works. Or perhaps it's both — we know that The Coalition has moved onto Unreal Engine 5 as it dropped a cinematic demo last year, and while a remaster collection would be an ideal way for the team to cut its teeth on the new engine (they're existing games so all of the groundwork is already done), a new game from scratch in a new engine isn't going to be quite so simple. Assuming both rumours aren't wide of the mark, it seems likely we'll see one or the other (or even both) at E3 this year.Compulsion Games: UnknownThe once-tiny team that gave us Contrast has grown massively in recent years, hitting just shy of 40 staff by the time We Happy Few launched in 2018, and announcing last year that it had more than doubled its workforce to 80. What the rapidly expanding Compulsion is working on next is still unknown —"we are crafting new and strange adventures," the official site states — but we shouldn't have to wait long to find out. It's been five years since its last release, so you have to imagine it should be in a position to reveal its next project soon. Rumours suggest it could be a game currently going by the moniker Project Midnight, set in a “dark and fantastical world” inspired by America's Deep South, after concept art for the game seemingly leaked back in 2021.Double Fine Productions: UnknownWith a studio as adorably all over the place as Double Fine, there's no point in even trying to guess what it will get up to next. They're not ones to keep us waiting, though, releasing a whopping 27 games between 2010 and 2019, and while that cadence has slowed a little in recent years, there's still no stemming the tide of wonderfully weird games. Back in late 2021, Double Fine announced that it would be "splitting up into various teams and starting different projects that we think you’ll enjoy," so it sounds like we'll be seeing multiple smaller titles next rather than something on the scale of Psychonauts 2. On that note, we do know is that we won't be getting Psychonauts 2 DLC, although that could simply be because the success of the madcap platformer has led Double Fine to plan another adventure for Raz down the line — maybe fans won't have to wait sixteen years for a sequel this time!id Software: UnknownLike Double Fine, Doom developer id Software has been known to fire out games at a fair lick, with typically a new game every year or two of late. Since 2020's Doom Eternal, all we've seen from the studio was the full release of PC shooter Quake Champions last year, so once again, we feel like it's about time to find out what's next. Doom Eternal was announced at E3 so it's possible the returning show is where we'll find out what id has been cooking up — more Doom will always be welcome, although a Quake reboot in the same vein would be hype as hell...The Initiative: Perfect DarkThe Initiative is still a studio in its infancy, having only been established a little over four years ago and dropped its debut game trailer in late 2020. Perfect Dark is being co-developed with Tomb Raider dev Crystal Dynamics, but since that first teaser trailer, we've seen absolutely nothing of the game — it's believed to be another first-person spy thriller in the same vein as the original, once again with heavy sci-fi elements. Some of the reports that emerged last year made it sound like development wasn't going especially smoothly, citing a"fast and furious" exodus of staff which "heavily affected" the project's momentum, though later ones made things sound a lot more positive since Crystal Dynamics came on board. Hopefully the teams will be in a position to show us a little more of Perfect Dark soon.inXile Entertainment: Unannounced RPGWe know precious little about what will come out of the Wasteland developer next, beyond the fact that it'll be an Xbox Series X|S RPG made in Unreal Engine 5 — the engine change might be part of the reason why we haven't seen anything from the team since 2020's Wasteland 3. In a 20th anniversary video last year, Brian Fargo said that this next project is "not deviating" from what fans love about its games, so it's probably pretty safe to expect the same kind of deliciously dark tone and open-ended gameplay that make the Wasteland games so good.MachineGames: Indiana JonesMachineGames' new Indiana Jones game was announced two years ago (to the very day, at the time of first writing this) with a short teaser trailer, but with nothing else emerging on the game since, it's been all quiet on the Indy front for a while. It recently came to light that the team had picked up former Starbreeze lead designer Jens Andersson (who worked on The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness) as design director: "I'm so excited about what we are building, and the way we get to do it — featuring one of the most iconic characters ever," he said. MachineGames is another studio that tends to work pretty fast, so the fact that we've only seen a Quake remaster from the studio since 2019's Wolfenstein: Youngblood means we're inclined to believe we'll get a glimpse of Indy soon.Mojang Studios: Minecraft LegendsMinecraft Legends, the new action-strategy spin-off from one of gaming's biggest names, should be closer to launch than a lot of the other games featured here. It's currently down for an April 18th release on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. "Explore a familiar yet mysterious land, full of diverse life, lush biomes, and rich resources," we're told. "But this paradise is on the brink of destruction. The piglins have arrived — and they’re threatening to corrupt the Overworld." Expect to see a good bit more on the game later this month, and launch isn't too far away now.Ninja Theory: Senua's Saga: Hellblade II/Project: MaraNinja Theory has been toiling away on its Hellblade sequel for some time now. The action-adventure follow-up first got announced at The Game Awards back in 2019, returning two years later to show off some stunning gameplay. The team working on the game is reportedly double the size of that which created the original, which should reflect the epic nature of the game and the massive step up in terms of visuals — Hellblade II looks pretty darn incredible. 2022 came and went with barely a whisper about the game, so we're looking forward to hopefully seeing more soon. Ninja Theory also has Project: Mara in the works, an "experimental title that explores new ways of storytelling" announced back in 2020 and being developed "with the aim of recreating the horrors of the mind as accurately and realistically as possible." Sounds delightful.Obsidian Entertainment: Avowed/The Outer Worlds 2A 200-strong studio that often has multiple projects on the go at once, Obsidian currently has two big games in the works despite only launching the criminally underrated Pentiment late last year. Avowed is a new fantasy RPG that was announced back in 2020 but has only shown off a single trailer since, while The Outer Worlds 2 appears to be a direct sequel to the 2019 first-person sci-fi RPG. The latter's fantastic 2021 teaser trailer suggested, if jokingly, that we might not see this one for a while. "The developers haven't finished the design, or the story, or finished any gameplay that's actually ready to show," we're told. "In fact, the only thing they have finished is the title." Fingers crossed they've made a little more progress since then, and that one or both of these make an appearance soon.Playground Games: Fable/Forza Horizon 5 DLCAnnounced back in 2020, Fable will see Playground Games — which to date only has the Forza Horizon games in its garage — return to the whimsical fantasy world created by the now-defunct Lionhead. Although we haven't seen anything more since that first teaser trailer, there has been a slow trickle of info-morsels for a while, but with the team expanding its writing pool late last year and reportedly calling in help from Eidos Montreal as a support studio, we have to wonder whether this reboot might still be a fair way out. Playground is also readying Forza Horizon 5's second expansion — we don't yet know what form this might take, but we're looking forward to finding out.Rare: EverwildSince its announcement all the way back in 2019, Rare has barely said a word about Everwild, and despite it being very pretty, we still have no idea what it actually is. By the sounds of things, it's possible that Rare doesn't, either — a 2021 report claimed that Everwild's development had been "completely rebooted," and that it was "optimistically" aiming for a 2024 release. We're certainly excited to see what Rare has in store, so hopefully the team will keep us well fed with pictures of Everwild's odd little critters to help the wait go a little quicker. We could always play some GoldenEye to pass the time instead, with the classic shooter now finally in Game Pass after having been listed as "coming soon" since September. Roundhouse Studios: Unknown/Redfall (support)We know for sure that Roundhouse, which was formed from the ashes of Xbox 360 Prey developer Human Head Studios in 2019, is assisting Arkane with development of Redfall, and that it has something else in the works of its own, but what it might be, it's probably too early to say. A job listing was spotted last summer for a role on an unannounced project at the studio, and there have been rumblings about Human Head's final project (apparently a PvPvE online game based on a big comic franchise) still being in development, but we'll just have to wait and see.Tango Gameworks: Ghostwire: TokyoHorror-tinged action-adventure Ghostwire: Tokyo launched last March as a PlayStation exclusive, and it is expected that, like Deathloop last year, the game will be coming to Xbox around the time that its 12-month exclusivity deal is up. Beyond that, who knows what Shinji Mikami and his crew are up to? Tango is hardly the most prolific team and aside from Ghostwire (and a short-lived mobile game), we haven't seen anything since The Evil Within 2 back in 2017. It'll probably be a while until we see what's next after Ghostwire, then, but it's always worth paying attention to a studio with a true industry legend in Resident Evil creator Mikami at the helm. Tango also recently shadow-dropped the long-rumoured rhythm-brawler Hi-Fi Rush, so it seems like whatever will be next may still be quite early in development.Turn 10 Studios: Forza MotorsportAnother supposedly imminent release, yet January's Developer Direct didn't give us a concrete release date or even double down on the original launch window of the first half of this year, instead widening it to just a general 2023 window, possibly suggesting a slight delay. Still, Turn 10's return to the sim racing world of Forza Motorsport should be racing onto Xbox relatively soon. If you prefer track racing to the open world hijinks of the Horizon sub-series, this is where you'll want to be, lobbing tuned supercars around gorgeous circuits — Turn 10 has proven itself to be one of the best in the business with this particular style of racing game, and fans shouldn't have long to wait for their next fix. And what a shiny fix it looks to be, promising 4K60 with ray tracing on Xbox Series X.Undead Labs: State of Decay 3This is another one that we haven't seen in some time now, with absolutely no news on State of Decay 3 since it was first announced in 2020. A report came out last year that painted a pretty grim picture of the state of the studio, suggesting a toxic work environment had led to heavy staff churn which significantly impacted development, so that may be why we haven't seen more of the survival game in the last three years.World's Edge: Age of Empires IV (console)/Age of Mythology: RetoldWorld’s Edge has plenty “Age of” goodness on the way: off the back of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition coming to Xbox Series X|S and Game Pass at the end of January, Age of Empires IV will also come to consoles later in the year. The World’s Edge project most shrouded in secrecy at the moment is Age of Mythology: Retold, which was announced at the end of last year as the Definitive Edition of 2002’s beloved (and excellent) game. We don’t have a release date for this one yet — the announcement was just to confirm it’s in production, so it might still be some way off yet — but it’ll apparently come packed with updated graphics and features.Xbox Game Studios Publishing: Contraband/Ara: History UntoldWhile not actually a developer itself, Xbox Game Studios Publishing is all about partnering with external development teams to bring original games exclusively to Xbox and PC, as it has recently with the likes of Tell Me Why and As Dusk Falls. Next up will be two very different experiences — Contraband, a new open world co-op game from Just Cause developer Avalanche, and Ara: History Untold a turn-based grand strategy game for PC. No news on the former since its 2021 announcement, sadly, but the latter will be playable sooner than you might expect thanks to a technical alpha happening this month. Rumours abound about other Microsoft partnerships, but until they are made official, we won't know whether they'll be published by Xbox Game Studios or self-publish as Xbox console exclusives like last year's record-breaking High on Life — these include such rumoured projects as Project Dragon, a possible live service fantasy game by Hitman developer Io Interactive, and Project Belfry, reportedly the next game from Stoic Games, the team behind The Banner Saga games. It's worth mentioning here that Bethesda also has its own publishing arm in Bethesda Softworks, but it only appears to have internally developed titles on its slate right now.ZeniMax Online Studios: The Elder Scrolls Online (ongoing)/UnknownWhile The Elder Scrolls Online remains the team's primary focus right now as we head into another year-long adventure — we now know that the next chapter, Necrom, is coming in June with a new playable class as we return to Morrowind to visit the home of the Dark Elves — we also know that the studio's next game is "in early pre-production." It'll likely be a while before we see anything, but ESO has plenty more stories to tell in the meantime, so we're happy to wait a little longer while it cooks up something special.Which of these first-party Xbox games are you most looking forward to? Let us know down in the comments!Industry NewsUpcoming Release Written by Luke AlbigésLuke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.