After years of changes in its plans, Microsoft abandoned the centralized strategy on Xbox to convert its releases into multiplatform. Many of its great titles have arrived and will arrive on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, but that does not mean that the Xbox will stop being a protagonist in the current market.
With a lot of development studios under its wing, and a year that promises to be the best in terms of franchises that have represented Xbox over the years, these are some video games that will be released in 2026 for the Microsoft console.
After the barrage of classic franchises that made Xbox position itself on the map like Halo, Gears of War or Fable, Microsoft has had a hard time having its own quality titles that persist over time.Much of that has to do with its business intention to acquire hundreds of studios. However, Forza Horizon is one of those video games that impacted the gaming public.
The sequel to the successful Forza Horizon 5 has been waiting for years and this new installment will, for the first time, be set in Japan.The expectation is high for this racing video game that does much more than put you on the tracks, and luckily, it will be one of the first Xbox releases of the year since we will be able to try it starting May 19.
Perhaps the biggest bet that Xbox has of the year.The return of one of its historical franchises (after decades) and a total reinvention of this franchise.Fable is one of the video games that can mean a before and after for Xbox studios, and that is why it will have a place near the end of the year, where the big games that want to sell at Christmas usually compete.
In the last trailer we saw the high quality expected from this game, with a giant world to explore, a lot of comedy involved and a complete RPG that offers an evolution of what this franchise knew how to give us when RPGs were much less than what they can be now.
Announced as a surprise in the latest Xbox Developer Direct, Kiln is the new video game developed by Double Fine, the studio of historic developer Tim Schaffer (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango).This studio has already made great experiences under the wing of Xbox such as Psychonauts or Keeper, and it seems that Kiln is a completely different bet.
The crazy thing about this experience is that it will be a multiplayer video game that mixes fighting between mugs and ceramics.Something that is unusual for this studio and that seems to have made Double Fine “follow the trend”;which always has a chance of failing.However, you cannot judge until you have tried it, so we will wait for Kiln in 2026.
One of the most striking on the list due to its particularity: it will also come to PlayStation 5, and it is not ruled out that it will do so in the future to Nintendo Switch 2. Master Chief was undoubtedly the mascot and main face of the Xbox brand, and today, in its multiplatform strategy, it would seem to be one more of those trying to destroy sales on consoles where it was never available.
Halo: Campaign Evolved will be the remake of the first Halo but only in its story mode, with no multiplayer section confirmed at the moment.The specific release date is not yet known, although they had promised that it would arrive at some point this year.
The only video game on the list that is not an internal development of Xbox studios.Beast of Reincarnation is a new proposal from Game Freak, a development studio famous for being the creators and main developers of the Pokémon franchise.Although they have made small video games over the years, this is the first time they have offered an experiment of this caliber.
Beast of Reincarnation will arrive on Game Pass on day one, and for that reason, Microsoft has dedicated a good space to it in its Developer Direct.As they have done with other video games over the years, such as Atomic Heart or the multi-award-winning ClairObscur: Expedition 33, they want to take advantage of their early arrival on the platform so that the public associates them with the Xbox brand before anything else.
The closing of this list is another of the great returns that Microsoft promised. Announced a few years ago, but confirmed by Phil Spencer that it would arrive in 2026, the new Gears of War: E-Day enters a gray of not having been shown in the Developer Direct and not knowing if it will really be a video game this year or not.
If so;It is one of the most important on the list.Not only has it been seven years since we have had a new Gears of War, but the intention to make it a prequel makes it the closest experience to the original Gears of War of the latest installments and sets the bar very high for what we expect from this new installment.
