My 5 favorite games from the GDC Xbox Showcase

Annual Conference on Game Developers Started this week in San Francisco and as it does every year, Microsoft Xbox A brand collected a collection of Play Media demonstrations to try. They are all from his partner studios, more special those under his ID@Xbox Subbrand.

I spent a few hours playing a handful of games, talked to some of the developers behind the titles, and came up with a list of highlights of the upcoming games that it was worth paying attention to.

Clearly unclear: Expedition 33

The show for me was easy to Clair Rascur: Expedition 33, an upcoming role -playing game at the French studio Sandfall Interactive. The key accents included the wonderful art style that showed the stunning amount of particle effects. The music of the game was also extremely enjoyable, especially in battle. RPG combat music is often heard again and again during a long game and I had something I was looking forward to hearing was joy.

But the most exciting feature and what really causes Clair Rassur to stand out from a typical JRPG is the battle itself. It begins as a reversed-time freezing between you and the enemy, alternating attacking and defending-but quickly introducing several elements in real time.

When using special skills, you can press at specific times to do more damage or attack at one time, similar to what you would see in Mario Mario paper. You also have the opportunity to either avoid B, or for higher risk and remuneration, to parry with RB when an enemy attacks, which follows with a counterattack. This act is pushed even more, allowing the player as the battle stopped at their turn and controls the Gustav character, press LT to direct the attack and then move freely and shoot at the weak points of the enemy.

This combination of a turn battle with action sequences in real time gives the game a super fun flow when engaging enemies. I’m excited to play through the full game when it comes out on April 23 for Xbox, PS5 and PC.

Barcelona Hotel

The Barcelona Hotel is led by the developers of the Indy -Sueri Swery and Suda51, known for the deadly premonition and there are no more games of heroes, respectively. When you hear these two names, you are obliged to expect this cooperation to have a strange, dark tone, and that’s exactly what the Barcelona Hotel has.

This time, Devs put their creative power to a laterally untangled corneal, placed in a horror movie. You will fight through a ghostly sleep bearing as you unlock stronger and stronger abilities. Every death sends you back to a mysterious hotel full of bizarre and stationary characters. The game is very difficult, but Swary told me it was part of the design. You are intended to repeat these sequences and really learn the battle. Swery said he had something to find here for the fans of his previous work and that he and Suda51 work hard to make this best game so far.

Currently, Hotel Barcelona has no date of launch, but will come to Xbox, PS5 and PC.

Dairy

Mandragora is another lateral action game, but with a heavy focus on personalizing players until you are leveled. Our demonstration had three classes to choose from, while an additional three would be available in the full game in the future. What was pleasantly surprising is that your character has six different trees of upgrade skills, including trees for other classes. Do you want to play as a fraud that double breaks poisons, but still has access to the casting of the wizards? Of course, you can do this.

It is worth noting that the combat shares more DNA with mental than other action games for lateral scrolling like dead cells. Expenditure and animation priority action is key. You will not be able to avoid your attack when you want, so players will have to be strategic when dealing with the battle. When you die (and do it), a corpse is required to collect your missing resources.

Mandragora comes out on April 17 for Xbox, PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Charter

Herdling was definitely the smallest of the games I played at the event. You control a child with a magic wand that can direct these big, horned beings away from you, just like a sheep dog. As you lead the beings through a destroyed, apocalyptic city, you find and dial more of these beasts of your flock. He gives where wild things are vibration.

Puzzles are quite easy to solve, and the game is definitely more to engage and sink your new friends. After leaving the city for a colorful, lush meadow, the game introduces the opportunity for your beasts to be forwarded at a much faster speed. The demo ends after competing through magical flowers while the music is overcome. It was a very short and light demonstration and I was interested in how the team would expand this in full game.

Herdling came out sometime in 2025 for Xbox and PC.

To t

From Keita Takahashi, the creator of the iconic hit cathamars, the dams comes much more to the Tale Tape in T. You play as a 13-year-old child who spent his entire life in a pose (their hands and shoulders cannot bend as a video game hero that is improperly loaded). From there, the demonstration translates through several mini games around what it is like to live with this restriction. The child uses a special sink and an extra long toothbrush, for example.

However, the game radiates charm and enjoyment, just as you would expect from this creator. The world is filled with bizarre characters, first of all, your friend Giraffe, who likes to make sandwiches. But for each useful element there is a more touching, but the darker side of this story of age. The main character is harassed on his first school day because of the T-form situation of T.

Takahashi explained after the demonstration that he was telling a touching story that hits the home, reflecting their own experiences that are harassed as they grow in Japan. I am extremely interested in what it has to say and what this designer can do when the story is a basic element in his game.

On T it comes on May 28 for Xbox, PS5 and PC.