Xbox touted a return to exclusives at its Sunday showcase, locking Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution to Xbox and PC under new CEO Asha Sharma. But the two games fans wanted most - The Elder Scrolls 6 and Marvel's Blade - were nowhere to be found.
Chief content officer Matt Booty explained why in a Variety interview after the show. The answer for both games is essentially the same: they're not ready to show, and Xbox won't promise a release window until they are.
"Having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen Elder Scrolls playing, it looks amazing, and it's coming along well," Booty said. "We'll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time."
The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 2018 - eight years ago. Since then, Xbox has released one console generation, and the game hasn't received a single new trailer.
Former Xbox chief Phil Spencer suggested in 2023 that the RPG was at least five years out, putting a potential launch in 2028. The game may skip an entire console generation.
Booty's logic is straightforward: showing a game means promising it's coming soon, and Xbox won't make that promise until it can keep it. "When you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you've got," he told Variety.
Marvel's Blade, announced at the 2023 Game Awards and reportedly not entering full production until 2024, faces a similar timeline. Booty offered little comfort: "It's a big show, I can't fit everything in.
There's other beats coming up in the year." The absence of both games cuts against the messaging Xbox pushed during its showcase.
Under Sharma, who replaced Phil Spencer in February, the company committed to giving Xbox players "a reason to believe in Xbox, a reason to buy an Xbox." But the two titles that would do the most to sell hardware are years from release.
Compounding the tension: Xbox employees received a memo titled "Next 100 Days: Xbox Reset," warning of incoming personnel cuts. The division is grappling with bad investments and an overextended studio system, Polygon reported.
Booty's assurances that The Elder Scrolls 6 development is safe may ring hollow - he said similar things about Perfect Dark and Redfall before both projects collapsed. The new exclusivity strategy itself comes with caveats. Booty confirmed Xbox will only reveal platform decisions when a concrete release date is set.
Major live-service titles and games already announced for other platforms will remain multiplatform. That leaves The Elder Scrolls 6's exclusivity status officially unconfirmed.
"I can tell you about what we're doing with those two," Booty said, referring to Gears and Clockwork Revolution. "But we're going to continue to look at it going forward."
Xbox's 25th anniversary arrives this November. Booty hinted at more reveals later in the year but offered no specifics on whether either missing game would appear.
