Four games that were formerly exclusive to Microsoft will soon be available on rival consoles.
Hi-Fi Rush and pirate game Sea of Thieves are coming to Sony's PS5 only. Meanwhile, narrative adventure game Pentiment and co-op game Grounded will be on PS5 as well as Nintendo Switch.
It follows Microsoft's announcement in February that four Xbox exclusives would soon appear on rival platforms, in what some considered a major change of direction for the industry, Until now, it had not been known what those titles were.
Two of the games were revealed on Wednesday in a Nintendo Direct, an online showcase for the firm, before Microsoft confirmed the full list in a blog post.
“These multiplayer titles available will bring more people together and continue to grow their communities of players,” said head of Xbox game studios Matt Booty. Neil Watton, editor of TheXboxHub, said fans would not be too surprised by the names of the games that were chosen to appear on other consoles, after several weeks of rumours.
“It's those jumping into Grounded and Sea of Thieves who will ultimately be rewarded, with full cross-play across platforms building the player base immediately on launch in April,” he told the BBC.
“When you consider the depth of the cooperative play found in those titles, the moves make complete and utter sense.” Several other upcoming titles for the Nintendo Switch were also revealed during Nintendo's event, including a new Endless Ocean game, Monster Hunter Stories, and a remake of 2010 Disney hit Epic Mickey.
Viewers were also surprised by the developers of the 2017 hit, Sonic Mania, unexpectedly announcing their latest game. Penny's Big Breakaway, made by Evening Star, is a platform game with a distinctively 1990s look.
“I think the 3D platformer genre at the moment is actually in a bit of a renaissance”, the developer's director Christian Whitehead told the BBC.
“There's a lot to choose from, even just on Steam and Nintendo Switch”, he added. Evening Star was formed by many of the people who worked on Sonic Mania as independent contractors.
That game was a hit in 2017, picking up an average score of 86 on review aggregator Metacritic alongside a nomination at that year's Game Awards. Though a sequel to that game was highly anticipated by fans it never came to pass, and Sega instead released Sonic Superstars in 2023, made by Sonic's original designer.
Sonic and Mario – the mascots of Sega and Nintendo – were considered rivals in the 1990s, but after Sega stopped making its own consoles in the 2000s, it began releasing Sonic on rival consoles. Nowadays, Sonic games appear on Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft hardware.
Argick, a Scottish Twitch streamer with about 20,000 followers, said he planned on spending his evening playing Penny's Big Breakaway on stream.
“Sonic Mania was a phenomenal critical success, fans and critics loved it,” he told the BBC.
“Just looking at the footage for Penny's Big Breakaway, it looks really smooth, fluid, speedy and fun – really simple to pick up and play.
“But it's also really silly and not taking itself too seriously.” Elsewhere on Wednesday, gamers less interested in Nintendo updates were treated to a trailer for the upcoming expansion to 2022 Game of the Year award winner Elden Ring.
Shadow of the Erdtree is slated for a June release on PC, Xbox and PlayStation in the UK.
— CutC by bbc.com
