Dishonored and Prey developer Arkane Studios has a neat idea up its sleeve with the release of Deathloop, as players will have to explore a deadly island locked in time and pull off a number of executions to break out of the chronal jail. Of course, there’s more to the game than just that insultingly brief synopsis, but the kicker …

In the current console race, Microsoft’s ace up its sleeve is an ecosystem where backwards compatibility actually matters. Thanks to efforts over the years, a large chunk of the Xbox, Xbox 360 has been preserved and made accessible on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles. Many of those games have even received a few nifty upgrades along the way, and now Microsoft is stepping up its game further to enhance them even further with Xbox FPS Boost.

Feast thine eyes, on the latest Xbox-branded peripheral! An official Xbox headset hasn’t been seen in quite a while, and that single earcup audio device doodad I got with my Xbox 360 is starting to show its age so it’s about time that I looked at an upgrade. Microsoft’s official Xbox Wireless Headset looks to be a solid piece of smart audio delivery technology, which will be out in May and will have an official recommended retail price of R1800 on our shores.

There’s still plenty of potential under the hood though, and on the latest official Xbox podcast, director of program management Jason Ronald teased “exciting” new features for the consoles in the near and far future.

Got an Xbox Game Pass subscription that’s up to date? Then good news! Here’s what’s being added to the service in February. And also what you’re going to be saying goodbye to. Arrivederci games I never had the time to play, I hardly knew you!

Baseball! I…have no idea what the appeal is behind less-classy cricket, but hey who am I to argue with all the fans out there. For years, America’s favourite pasttime has been represented on the video game stage by MLB: The Show, a PlayStation exclusive that is apparently pretty darn great. In a huge paradigm shift, that Playstation-produced series is batting for the Xbox cages, as it’ll be stepping up to team green’s pitch later this year.

Sega, Sony, and Nokia, all tried to beat Nintendo at its own game, and failed. So what of Microsoft then? If any company had the time and resources to create a handheld console that could give the Nintendo 3DS or even the Switch a run for its money, it had to be the home of Xbox. Microsoft was having none of that though.

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