Microsoft announced the ID @ Xbox program eight years ago. The gaming division of the Redmond giant regularly informs a wide audience about niche projects. During the week, Agostino Simonetta, who leads the program with partners around the world, presented three games created under the auspices of ID @ Xbox, and also shared a couple of interesting numbers.

Over the past eight years, the initially small initiative has grown from fifty development studios to more than four thousand in sixty-seven countries around the world. In recent years, growth has also spurred the Xbox Game Pass, with which the player has access to projects of various genres and calibers. Unless you are part of a fairly narrow circle of fans of a particular type of game, you are unlikely to ever purposefully acquire, for example, a jRPG originally from France. But if Edge of Eternity comes across to you in the subscription catalog, why not try something new? Actually, with her, and begin the story about what we saw.

Edge of Eternity

In fact, Edge of Eternity is hardly new. Development began back in 2016, when four ardent French jRPG fans decided they could bring something new to the genre. In addition, the number of classical representatives of this school has been decreasing in recent years. The project was launched in Early Access on Steam at the end of 2018, and now, almost two and a half years later, it is preparing for a full release and console debut. 

Edge of Eternity is reminiscent of those deliberately old-school shooters that have recently gained particular popularity, only in the jRPG arena. Midgar Studio is not trying to reinvent the genre, but on the contrary, it opens a portal to the era of PlayStation 2 and Final Fantasy X. Everything here is imbued with the spirit of the beginning and mid-XNUMXs, from battles based on ATB (Active Time Battle) and a soundtrack recorded with the participation of Yasunori Mitsuda ( Yasunori Mitsuda), right down to the name of the studio.

Everything that comes to mind first when thinking about a genre is sure to be reflected in Edge of Eternity: the personal story of twins looking for a cure for their mother against the backdrop of a global catastrophe; crystals as one of the central themes and a way of pumping; whimsical mounts and so on. At first glance, it seems as if this is another attempt by Square Enix to do “as in the good old days.” And this, perhaps, is the main problem – it feels like Edge of Eternity does not have a face of its own.

To my request to describe the game in two words, the producer of the project replied: «JRPG from France”… But there is nothing French or just European in it. On the other hand, the reviews on Steam are overwhelmingly positive, so Midgar Studio at least managed to adequately reproduce the familiar formula.

⇡ # The Ascent

If you dreamed of “Diablo with guns” and were disappointed with Warhammer 40: Inquisitor – Martyr, then The Ascent is worth taking a closer look at. The action takes place in a cyberpunk world, in the megalopolis Velez, which is open to exploration. The game will offer a vast world in which you cannot do without taxi services or at least the metro (if it is not cut out for release … sorry, I could not resist). The Ascent gives the impression of textbook cyberpunk with its eternal night and neon-flooded streets, but with a certain twist – aliens. Veles is inhabited not only by people, but also by representatives of various extraterrestrial civilizations. They also promise a fascinating story with a bunch of videos and voiced dialogues, but the main emphasis is still on an exciting gameplay.

To describe the game in a nutshell: before us is an adrenaline shooter with a top view, in the spirit of some Alien Shooter, only with loot falling out of enemies and rich possibilities for the individualization of the hero. The whole game can be played either alone or in the company of living people (there can be up to four people in a group). The cooperative is built on the principle of drop in / drop out – colleagues can connect or leave at any time, the complexity will be adjusted on the fly.

Отдельных классов не предусмотрено, вы можете вкладывать очки развития в любые навыки без ограничений. Разумеется, не обойдётся без аугментации, а все кибернетические имплантаты обязательно отобразятся на модели персонажа. Разработчики уделяют огромное внимание внешнему виду — выглядит The Ascent отменно, не зря игру анонсировали на первом показе проектов для Xbox Series X|S.

Механика стрельбы приправлена парой занимательных идей. Во-первых, можно (а порой и нужно) пользоваться укрытиями. Конечно, не как в Gears of War — игра предполагает куда более активный экшен. Во-вторых, палить можно из двух стоек, условно «верхней» и «нижней». Каждая эффективна против определённых типов врагов. Только сложно сказать, насколько интуитивным будет управление с такими возможностями.

⇡ #Twelve minutes

Despite the fact that Twelve Minutes is created by the development team, the game can be called the author’s project of the artist Luis Antonio (Luis Antonio), who presented it personally. And he describes it as nothing more than an “interactive thriller”. A very, very chamber thriller. The entire action of Twelve Minutes (at least as far as is known at the moment) takes place in a two-room apartment. The main character comes home, where he will have a festive dinner with his wife. However, the family does not have time to enjoy the comfort of home, when a detective bursts into the apartment, shamelessly accuses his wife of murder and beats her husband to death … And then the protagonist wakes up at the moment when he just went home. He was stuck in a twelve minute time loop.

In terms of mechanics, Twelve Minutes is pretty simple. You watch the events exclusively from above – you will not see the faces of the heroes. The apartment is full of interactive points and objects. A small space is replete with the most subtle possibilities – for example, you can take a mug, wash it, make coffee and serve it to your wife, for which she will be very grateful. Some interactions are purely decorative, while others can influence the course of history in unexpected ways. With each repetition, the protagonist will learn more and more details, which will open up additional opportunities after the next “reboot”. The Outer Wilds in miniature.

Twelve Minutes focuses on characters and storytelling. Great attention is paid to the elaboration of the main characters: their animation, realistic interaction with each other and the environment, as well as voice acting. Voices were given to them by Hollywood stars: Daisy Ridley, James McAvoy and Willem Dafoe. Their beautiful performance transforms Twelve Minutes into a theatrical production.

The only question is the estimated duration – fifteen hours! It is difficult to imagine how Twelve Minutes will be able to rivet the player’s attention for so long in such a modest setting: the dynamics of character relations should be steeper than a roller coaster, and the number of skeletons in the closet should be in the tens. We’ll find out soon enough – Luis promises a release “exactly before the end of the year, perhaps even in the coming months.”

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It is gratifying that a giant like Microsoft sees support for small studios as an important area. Xbox Game Pass is a great help for players in this regard. The subscription not only offers interactive entertainment for all tastes – more importantly, it allows you to try something new, be it a nod to the jRPG of the PS2 era or a room thriller voiced by Hollywood stars. Indie developers have a new model of making money, the player has a way to evaluate something that they would not otherwise appreciate.