The Most Highly Anticipated Xbox 360 and Xbox One Games of 2014

2014 has the potential to be one of the greatest years in the history of console gaming and after the year we just had, that’s defiantly saying something! The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Gran Theft Auto V, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Tomb Raider, Ni No Kuni; 2013 was relentless! In case you missed it be sure to check out All That’s Epic’s Game of the Year 2013 coverage and be sure to leave a comment below telling us which games you are most excited for; we would love to hear from you.

Anyway, 2K13 appreciation aside it’s time to look forward and see what 2014 has to offer. This year will see the release of the first wave of independently published ID@Xbox titles which are currently due out in March. Then we have Thief, Watch Dogs, Dying Light, Elder Scrolls Online and Dragon Age: Inquisition all expected to be released sometime in 2014 and then of course… Destiny. The mind boggles at the multi platform possibilities, but what about the exclusives, what has Microsoft got in store for its loyal Xbox One gamers? Well without further ado All That’s Epic would like to present, the most highly anticipated Xbox 360 and Xbox One games of 2014.

Titanfall

Respawn Entertainment. March 11th 2014

At this current moment in time Titanfall is perhaps the most highly anticipated game of 2014 only because we are so close to release and we have all seen so much of it that the anticipation has reached near uncontainable levels of excitement. March 11th is not long to wait for the first game to come from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare developer Jason West and Vince Zampella after Activision fired them from Infinity Ward for breach of contract and insubordination back in 2010.

So why should you care about Titanfall? Well Titanfall is a 6 v 6 online only first person shooter where players fight on foot or inside one of three styles of Titan, a mechanized combat suit. Respawn define the game as the merging of cinematic design with fast-paced action which brings together scale, verticality and story elements traditionally only seen in single player campaigns. Coming exclusively to Xbox One and Xbox 360 Titanfall has already won over 60 awards and is tipped to be Microsoft’s ‘killer app.’

Halo

343 Industries. 2014

*** WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Halo 4 ***

Here are the facts. In 2014 343 Industries will be releasing a game set in the Halo Universe, it will be exclusive to Xbox One and will be published by Microsoft; this is all we know… How can we be so excited for a game we know so little about? Well simple really it’s more Halo. Now, I realise that to some this might mean more pretentious first person shooter science fiction nonsense, but to most of us it means another chapter in one of video games most favoured sons. Which, following the promise of franchise director Frank O’Connor that, “343 Industries will do better next time,” it is cause for buying many, many tickets for the Halo-hype train. If you haven’t seen the trailer that Microsoft teased at E3 back in June then please take a moment to appreciate it in all its glory, it really is a spectacle unto itself; but what could it tell us about the future of the series, I hear you cry. Well to that end all we can do is speculate; in the trailer we see a cloaked Master Chief holding what appears to be a broken AI data chip standing toe-to-toe with an oppressive bird-like Forerunner Construct. After the emotional farewell between Cortana and John-117 at the end of Halo 4, is it possible that Master Chief has gone searching for advanced Forerunner technology capable of brining Cortana back to life? It’s possible…

Quantum Break

Remedy Entertainment

From the team that created Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, and Alan Wake comes this; an entirely new third person action shooter that Quantum Break creative director Sam Lake claims to be a, “revolutionary entertainment experience that combines a cinematic action game and a high quality live-action show.” At this point, we do not know exactly how this will work, but early reports are that the two will somehow influence each other and players who watch the show will find clues that will enrich their video game experience and in some way unlock a personalized player/ directors cut of the show.

Don’t just assume that Quantum Break is just some glorified entertainment experiment, at the heart of the matter is a high-concept science fiction game that deals with the dangers of time travel in an entirely grounded reality. Quantum Break follows three main characters, Jack Joyce, Beth Wilder, and Paul Serene, who each gain the ability to manipulate time in some fashion after a time travel experiment goes horribly wrong at the fictional Riverport University. Joyce and Wilder are confirmed to be games main protagonists and only playable characters. Quantum Break’s key feature is what Remedy describes as, “junction moments” where a player will be able to see glimpses of multiple timelines, and then must choose which outcome they wish to pursue. Quantum Break currently has no release date attached to it, but if we all come together and hope against hope we may be able to displace time jump into the future steal ourselves a copy and then hop back to the present to experience what could quite possibly be video games Citizen Kane. If you haven’t had the chance to check out the E3 trailer below.

Sunset Overdrive

Insomniac Games. 2014

Back in June 2013 Insomniac confirmed that they had partnered with Microsoft to develop open-world shooter Sunset Overdrive. At the time this news was considered shocking because while technically independent, Insomniac had been developing exclusively for SONY’s PlayStation platform for almost 18 years. What this means for Insomniac’s relationship with SONY is still unclear, but for now the focus is not on the company, but the game. Sunset Overdrive is a highly stylized third person shooter which appears to focus on agile combat, fluent movement, and all out mayhem! The art style is perhaps a little reminiscent of Team Fortress 2, but only if Team Fortress 2 was cranked up the max and used energy drink based weapons in place of your standard shotguns.

Little else is known about the game, but in a 48 minute livestream available via their official Twitch channel, the developers did talk at how they plan on engaging the player by creating something that people will want to keep coming back to because of a religious post-release update schedule.

Fable Legends

Lionhead Studios

Lionhead announced that they were developing a HD remake of Fable: The Lost Chapters back in June, but if that wasn’t enough for you Microsoft then announced that Lionhead was also working on Fable Legends for Xbox One during their Gamescom 2013 showcase event in August. Fable Legends has been developed using the cutting edge Unreal Engine 4 and could quite accurately be summed up as Fable… This time with friends. It’s not the Fable MMO that fans have been calling for, for years, but Fable Legends will see four heroes join together to fight against a single adversary who controls the forces of evil. The good guys will have a very traditionally Fable experience, selecting a hero, completing quests and defeating enemies all in the name of defending the people of Albion. Playing as the forces of evil however will not yield a traditionally Fable experience, playing as the forces of evil will be like playing Peter Molyneux’s 1997 smash hit Dungeon Keeper as players will be given control over the placement of the enemies and traps that are designed to oppose the forces of good.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CD Projekt

*** WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings ***

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was without a doubt one of the greatest games of 2011 and the final cut scene which showed the Nilfgaardian army crossing the river and marching into the Northern Kingdoms was one of the greatest cliff hanger endings in video game history, period. Details are few and far between, but The Witcher 3 has been confirmed to be at least 30 times larger than the previous Witcher games and based on the pre-release demo shown at this year’s Gamescom it has already won upwards of 60 awards! Since the early days the Witcher series has always been famous for its heightened visual fidelity and while players might not be able to perceive a vast visual improvement it’s the overall scale of The Witcher 3 that makes it so impressive. The Witcher 3 is not a Microsoft exclusive, but it deserves special mention what with it being one of the most highly anticipated RPG’s of all time.

Kinect Sport Rivals

Rare. Q1/Q2 2014

Kinect Sports Rivals is very clearly trying to emulate the success of Nintendo’s Wii Sports franchise only with a Microsoft-esque spin. Originally slated to be a part of the Xbox One launch line up Kinect Sport Rivals is now due out in the first half of 2014 and as we move forward the general level of excitement seems to be steadily rising. Early reports are that Rare has placed less emphasis on the individual sports and instead focused more on the sport of competition within a video game world. Kinect Sports Rivals features bowling, jet ski racing, rock climbing, soccer, target shooting and tennis and while it is the dreaded third instalment it is by no means the difficult third album.

Project Spark

Team Dakota

Project Spark is a video game about making video games. Its video game-ception! Based on Microsoft’s little known experiment Kudo Game Lab, Project Spark is about giving players the tools to create whatever they want. Essentially a digital canvas Project Spark allows players to remix user-generated content or start from scratch and develop content of their own. Project Spark will support a mouse and keyboard, has Kinect integration, SmartGlass capabilities and according to developers has almost endless possibilities.

At this stage it seems fair to say that creation is the new zombies, the runaway success of Minecraft and the million Minecraft clones that have since appeared proves this, but is Project Spark going to be the video game equivalent of Night of the Living Dead or is it more akin to Jenna Jameson’s Zombie Strippers? Only time will tell…

Below

Capybara Games

Below is a top down perspective roguelike action game from the award winning developers behind Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. Featuring real-time combat, permadeath and randomly generating environments that are filled with enemies so tough that you will be cursing the name of Capybara from the second you step onto the island. A lot has been made of the games simplicity, but in a recent conversation with Eurogamer Capybara president Nathan Vella says that with simplicity comes depth and by employing a very tight set of mechanics the studio is able to ensure those mechanics are as finely tuned as possible in turn offering a much more refined experience for the player.

D4

Access Games

Dark Dreams Don’t Die or as it is more commonly known D4, is an episodic video game being developed by Access Games and directed by Hidetaka Suehrio, the famed Japanese developer behind Deadly Premonition and Lord of Arcana. D4 does not support controller based input and will instead utilize the all new Kinect 2.0 to allow players to control the main protagonist David Young as he attempts to solve the mystery behind his wife’s brutal murder. The art style is fondly reminiscent of Telltale’s The Walking Dead and all in all it looks like it will be a solid release. Now stick with me here because this is where D4 takes a bit of a detour into crazy town as the title actually has an alternate meaning; D4 is also an acronym for the fourth dimension… Time. After the traumatic events surrounding your wife’s death you have mysteriously developed the ability to travel through time and you must now travel back and try to undo the murder by revisiting your past and unearthing the deadly secrets buried there.