Indiana Jones in 2024 and everything else announced in Xbox's Developer Direct

Yesterday Microsoft served up their latest Xbox Developer Direct, which offered reveals and information for a number of games, including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, but it seems there was actually another game teased during the show – Quake 6.

Microsoft’s second (hopefully annual?) Xbox Developer Direct went, like the first, exceptionally well. While we didn’t get a shadow-dropped killer exclusive – and let’s be honest, that’s not an expectation that Team Xbox probably wants to set – we did still get the surprise of a behind-the-scenes look at Square Enix’s upcoming Visions of Mana. Better yet, we got a good look at gameplay from Obsidian’s upcoming first-person RPG Avowed, we got the Hellblade 2 release date we’ve been waiting for, and best of all, we got the proper reveal of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the new first-person (!) action/adventure/puzzler/whip-simulator that’s being executive produced by Elder Scrolls and Fallout director Todd Howard. I’m extremely pleased with Microsoft’s showing, and it helps set the tone for what should be a very good year of Xbox exclusives.

Xbox kicked off its 2024 with a jam-packed Developer Direct showcase, bringing reveals and updates on four upcoming releases from four studios, plus a bonus update from Square Enix. The 45-minute presentation, streamed live on YouTube and Xbox's other social channels late Thursday, took the covers off MachineGames' upcoming Indiana Jones game, provided a release date for the highly anticipated Senua's Saga, and revealed a release window for Avowed, Obsidian's next big fantasy RPG.

Today's Xbox Developer Direct stream offered updates on some of 2024's biggest Microsoft games, including MachineGames' Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Obsidian's Avowed and Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2. If you missed the stream and want a quick roundup of all the news, games, release dates and trailers featured, we've gathered it all together in this post.

You might not realize it, but the character of Indiana Jones has quite a history in the video game space. When his movies were some of the toasts of Hollywood, Lucasfilm made various games about the character that took him all over the world and looked for all sorts of artifacts. But it’s been some time since that experience was felt in the gaming space, and the last two movies starring him haven’t helped matters. However, over at Bethesda, Todd Howard had a vision, which has been revealed as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, headed up by Machine Games.

We're going to get a look at some of Microsoft's big new Xbox games tonight, in a brand new Xbox Developer Direct. We've been promised a look at the new Indiana Jones game, Obsidian's new RPG Avowed, and Ninja Theory's Hellblade 2.

The teaser video was then followed up with a secondary tweet, which revealed that the currently unnamed Indiana Jones game is being developed by MachineGames - the team that has brought us the Wolfenstein series. 

Today's the day of Xbox Developer Direct 2024, a select showcase of forthcoming Microsoft-published games, from sorcerous RPGs to intricate strategy games, which begins at 12pm PT, 3pm ET and 8pm UK. Wait, stop! Come back here, you silly goose. You don't need to go anywhere. I've embedded the livestream below, together with the key things you need to know about the games in question.

On Jan. 18, Microsoft will broadcast an Xbox Developer Direct, the company announced last week. MachineGames’ upcoming Indiana Jones game is expected to be highlighted, alongside Obsidian’s Avowed, Oxide Games’ Ara: History Untold, and Ninja Theory’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. No Activision Blizzard titles are expected on the broadcast.

The Xbox Developer Direct countdown is on as we're now less than 24 hours away from the first games showcase of 2024. As such, you might wonder how to watch the Xbox games showcase and when it starts in your region. 

Microsoft will hold the first notable video game showcase of 2024 tomorrow with its second annual Developer_Direct showcase. As Microsoft comes off a successful 2023 with games like Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, and Forza Motorsport, this show is poised to give us an in-depth view of the development of games coming this year, like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II and Avowed. Plus, we’ll see MachineGames’ Indiana Jones game in action for the first time.

It looks like the wait for Final Fantasy 14 Online on Xbox Series X/S could be ending very soon; Microsoft today announced that an open beta for the acclaimed MMORPG was now «officially available» before yanking the post and tweeting to say it had «incorrectly» shared the news.