March 2024 Xbox Partner Showcase roundup: Every announcement

Square Enix is gearing up to launch Final Fantasy 14 on Xbox, just weeks after the MMO game’s beta went live. You can dive into Eorzea’s full experience – or the free trial – starting March 21, 2024.

Riff Raff games revealed their new “third person, hard-boiled stealth sim” Sleight of Hand, an inventive noir story that follows a former detective-slash-witch as she tries getting even with the Coven that framed her for a heinous crime. Our hero uses smoke-based magic tied up in cards and can customize a deck with spells for every occasion. Expect this one in 2025 as a day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass.

Frogwares is back with The Sinking City 2, and it looks a lot like what you’d expect from The Sinking City. Psychological horror, delusions, terrifying monsters, the whole shebang. The Sinking City 2 will release sometime in 2025.

Here’s a different take on sci-fi. The Alters asks “what if you could only rely on yourself” and then makes you do it with dozens of copies of yourself. Jan, a miner, crash-lands on a hostile planet, and his only hope is a workstation designed for several people to operate. A rare substance on the planet lets Jan clone himself, with a catch – every clone is based on a major decision Jan made in his past. One is the Jan who never left home. Another is the Jan who actually tried to save his marriage. Your task becomes surviving the elements – and yourself.

If you like monster trucks and vibrant, colorful worlds, then Monster Jam Showdown is for you. It looks like a pretty fun ride, and it’ll launch later in 2024.

Creatures of Ava from Inverge Studios puts you in the role of nature conservationist, as you fight – without violence – to save the natural world from a sinister infection spreading across the planet. Creatures of Ava will launch later in 2024.

A lengthy trailer for The First Berserker showed off a fair bit of the dark fantasy game’s Soulslike action. It looks like one to keep an eye on if you’re into that kind of thing, though there’s no anticipated release date yet.

Surgent Studios showed off a gorgeous new trailer for Tales of Kenzera Zau that highlights its colorful world, thoughtful approach to exploring grief, and challenging 2D platforming. It looks brilliant, and it’s set to launch on April 23, 2024.

My favorite genre of game reveal is where I’m left wondering what I actually just saw, and that’s the feeling Unknown 9’s latest trailer left me with. Bandai Namco’s first look at the game in three years showed off a bit of what to expect, including truth-seeker Haroona’s powers that give her control over time, space, and even other people. Unknown 9: Awakening finally launches sometime in summer 2024.

To the surprise of almost no one, Atlus is, in fact, making a DLC expansion for Persona 3 Reload, even though they said it’s the complete package already. That DLC is The Answer, an epilogue story centered on Aigis that originally launched in Persona 3: FES. The Answer launches in September 2024 as the third wave of Reload’s expansion pass. The first two waves – which release in March 2024 and May 2024, respectively – will add new music and costumes for the S.E.E.S. team.

Frostpunk 2 is just around the corner. Dead Mage and 11bit showed a new trailer and unveiled a July 25, 2024, release date.

Stalker 2 releases later in 2024, and GSC Game World is making the wait a little easier by launching the Stalker trilogy on Xbox. That includes Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Heart of Prypiat, all modified to work perfectly on console. The trilogy is available now. 

What if Monster Hunter Rise's raids were fun and you were a magic warrior who cleansed evil, saved villagers, and had some pretty slick powers? That's apparently the question Capcom is answering with Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, a game that looks part tower-defense, part Monster Hunter, and part Dragon's Dogma. It's colorful and ambitious, and it launches later in 2024.