As part of Summer Game Fest, Microsoft announced an ID@Xbox event that will see over 30 pre-launch playable demos of Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S made available over the next week.
This will mark ID@Xbox’s third Summer Game Fest event and will run for a week, from Tuesday, June 21st to Monday, June 27th. During this week, you’ll be able to peruse the demos and try out some games for yourself, with Microsoft encouraging those who do to leave some feedback for the developers.
“Access them on social media or through their websites”, the Xbox Wire post (opens in new tab) read. “If you like the game – tell them! If you have constructive criticism, they would love to hear that too.”
To manage expectations, Microsoft adds that the demos that will be available as part of the event “are not the norm”. While games added to the Demo channel are usually created after a game has been completed and are therefore a fairly accurate reflection of the final product, the demos available as part of the ID@Xbox event are more like show floor demos and therefore “are not necessarily indicative of the final product”.
Some of the games included are still in the early stages of development, the post says, with evolution and polishing still ahead, hence the value of constructive feedback.
After the event ends, the demos will be removed from the Xbox dashboard. While Microsoft has said that some may be reposted to the Demo channel later, “many will simply disappear by the end of the week”, so it’s worth a look to make sure you don’t miss out on anything good.
What can you play?
While Microsoft has promised that more than 30 demos will be available, it has yet to reveal the full list of games. That, he says, will be confirmed closer to the June 21 start date. However, he highlighted a few ahead of time.
There’s Baora: Lost Haven, described as a “colorful” and “fast-paced” adventure in which a young woman who has lost everything must use her physical and mental powers to save Earth. Then there’s a psychological thriller called Broken Pieces that takes place in a French coastal village “somehow out of the flow of time”. For FPS lovers, there’s Severed Steel, which promises “a fluid stunt system, destructible voxel environments, plenty of bullet time, a unique one-armed protagonist, and a dark electronic soundtrack.” Finally, there’s the cute Tinykin in which Milo must catch tinykin and use his powers to return him to his home planet.
That’s a pretty wide range of games on offer, and as there’s still a lot to be announced, there’s likely to be something that will please everyone.
Playable demos can be a really cool way to complete a high-flowing event like Summer Game Fest. After hours spent watching games that won’t be released for a while, actually trying out some of them and interacting with them ground everything in reality a little more. Also, with feedback being valuable to developers, everything runs smoothly.
