There were a lot of urban Eventlab routes featured in the last months and some worked really well imo.
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Someone gets it.
A new game+ mode where you as a new character try to beat your own lap time ghost as a story.
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…FH5 took longer to come out than previous games and so did its expansions and many of its updates. This suggests that an actual sequel will take longer too, which is fine.
FH5 has evergreen gameplay and insane amount of content, so there’s no need to for them to put out a new one in 2024. And it’s definitely not the only loved game Xbox has put out this gen.
Some of you honestly want the sequel to come out soon because of a 90+ metacritic score you think the game is guaranteed along with approval from the gaming media and gaming forum posters they you think Xbox * craves*.
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Am I naive enough to entertain the thought of gaming journalism pivoting to actually help filter through the voulume of games poised to be on gamepass in the next year or two and beyond? (In a positive way, that is!)
I don’t necessarily want them to take longer, myself and others are just pointing out that the 2 and even 3 year cycle of past Horizon games isn’t going to get any shorter and more than likely will continue to take longer going forward and that isn’t an issue anymore when 5 is still at the top of the charts and they have so many other games on the way
It’s simply better for them to take their time and make the game as good as possible instead of sticking to a schedule they are no longer bound by
One thing I will say about the Horizon series is as much as people feel the formula is becoming stale, it’s high ranking in top played lists and stuff suggests the fanbase is still very much enjoying it. Obviously I don’t want to see the series get low reviews like COD but it could be similar with Horizon where critics bemoan staleness while the players that play the game continue to love it (especially with a new map/environment).
I’m more of a casual Horizon player personally. I preferred the UK over Mexico i will admit. I’ve accepted the PGR series is never coming back 
So the Horizon games are where i go for my more casual racing these days. I reckon it’ll come out in 2025. The Horizon Playground team have lost a few key members and stuff so who’s to say what knock on effect that’ll have - maybe the team themselves want extra time so they can keep the series up to a high standard
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https://x.com/canadianguyehh/status/1727925222051836179?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
I know CoD is the number 1 in terms of going to Game Pass but this has to be runner-up.
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I agree with all that, and It’s also easier to create an event with less frequent releases.
But if they’re going on a four-year cycle, I’m going to expect more from them than a change of map. Although it’s very solid and so fun to play as always, episode 5 is also the least innovative of the series in my eyes.
That would be positive because journalists had to finally play and review lesser known games and not only AAA blockbuster releases.
Spirittea still sits at less than 10 reviews on OC and MC btw.
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Had a twitch stream going on for warframe last night due to drops(the only reason I use twitch) and decided to go to the browse feature just to see what was popular. Was a bit suprised to see that 265k people were watching streams of World of warcraft. For last night it was the most popular game being viewed which very much suprised me. I have no idea if there was an event or something else going on so no idea if it’s a one off but to see a 20 year old game still be so popular is very impressive and goes to show the popularity of ABK content. I definitely think there will be a push to get it on console though it could take a year or more unfortunately.
When I scrolled down the list there were 6 games(Wow, modern warfare 3, warzone, Diablo 4, hearthstone and overwatch) in the top 50 from ABK and 2 games(age of empires 2 and sea of thieves) from previous Microsoft studios.
It will be interesting to see if the Microsoft gaming leaders can leverage the popularity of the IP they now own to build the overall gaming ecosystem while maintaining the popularity of the games.
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Just finished that MW3 campaign. That is easily the worst COD campaign that I’ve played in the series.
I feel really bad for Sledgehammer because it seems like they’re never able to hit the landing on these games, whether that’s by upper management rushing them or just simply bad timing in the cycles.
I’m still in my mid 20’s but I vividly remember the MW2 maps so it’s pretty surreal to see those maps in today’s graphics. Im really glad that they still hold up. SBMM is brutal as ever I’ll probably drop MP pretty soon.
Makes you appreciate the SBMM system in Halo Infinite, it’s not perfect but in my opinion it’s the least punishing SBMM that I’ve seen in a shooter.
Is it even worse than CoD 3?! Man, that was a stinker.
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Interesting, the Halo community whines about SBMM all the time. Which is funny to me. The population is fairly small and comprised mostly of veteran ultra-competitive players that somehow expect the algorithm to provide them easy opponents to mow down in social modes all the time. 
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I haven’t played CoD in forever so I can’t speak for SBMM there but no, literally every game of Halo is an absolute sweat fest
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