This last week saw the unveiling of a number of gaming-related Microsoft news, as well as the expected Windows 11 test builds, and even new security flaws. Be sure to catch up via our overview.
As the final full week of August comes to a close, we take a look back at the various bits of news that have surfaced, from the sea of gaming-related reveals, to the small but significant selection of security vulnerabilities. You’ll find info about those subjects and more below, in your Microsoft digest for the week of August 22 – 28. As is tradition at the end of August, gamescom took place this week, and thus a number of game announcements and related news tidbits were present. Microsoft of course chose to have its own showing, which revealed a number of first-party, Game Pass, and streaming-related things. For one, Xbox Cloud Gaming (Project xCloud) is set to be made available for the Xbox One and Xbox Series families of consoles in Holiday 2021 – which holiday though, is up to Microsoft, and the solution will support 1080p 60FPS streaming. You’ll be able to differentiate between titles which do or do not support this feature via the small cloud icon, often placed directly onto the ‘Play’ button. And as Cloud Gaming is part of Game Pass Ultimate, we’d be remiss not to mention the fact that Microsoft’s gaming sub is also gaining 10 Humble Games-published games when they launch. This being positioned as a partnership, means we could see more games arrive to the service in the future. Speaking of the future, State of Decay 2 has crossed the 10 million player mark, with the developer announcing that the game’s Trumbull Valley will become a regular open-world region. This all is set to land September 1 as part of the game’s Homecoming update. Sticking to the very same month, September 7 will be bringing World Update VI to Flight Simulator, with the Top Gun: Maverick free expansion landing November 19 (aligning with the release of the eponymous movie). Also in September, Minecraft Dungeons is set to dig its way to Steam, surfacing on September 22. Moving onto October, the just-announced Wasteland 3: Cult of the Holy Detonation expansion is prepped to hit digital shelves – on October 5 -, followed by Age of Empires IV on October 28 ( which just revealed its Holy Roman Empire and Rus civilizations). In chronological order we then arrive at the month of November, with the 9th marking the release of Playground’s Forza Horizon 5, and the 15th seeing the launch of the special edition, Halo Infinite -themed Xbox Series X and Elite Series 2 Controller. The 15th also happens to be the 20th anniversary of Halo and the original Xbox (the Xbox one, not Xbox One). As for the game after which the special edition is modeled, Halo Infinite was said to launch on December 8 according to a leak, a leak which was not long after officially confirmed during the gamescom presentation. Another notable launch, though not first-party, is Destiny 2: The Witch Queen expansion, landing February 22. Loosely confirmed for sometime in the future is also Crusader Kings III. Pardox’s grand strategy will be hitting both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X| S…at one point, which I suspect depends entirely on how long it’ll take the developers to finish the game they’re currently playing. This may take a while, though hopefully not as long as Starfield, some of the major locations for which were revealed this week. Of course, it’s not all about waiting for some nebulous time in the future to enjoy games as, for example, Double Fine’s excellent Psychonauts 2 is already available – you can check out our review here – as is the ability to grab Mayhem, a Borderlands -inspired ship in Sea of Thieves.
