Xbox's first-party 2025 picture began forming during its impressive Summer Game Fest showcase in June. The show gave 2025 release windows to Playground Games' Fable reboot, Compulsion Games' South of Midnight, and Bethesda's freshly revealed Doom: The Dark Ages. Also unveiled at the show was Gears of War: E-Day, which, along with inXile's Clockwork Revolution, has entered the 2025 rumor mill as well. In an unexpected turn, Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds sequel, which was first announced in 2021, has just recently been given a 2025 release window when it appeared with a new trailer at The Game Awards 2024.
In Giant Bomb's 2024 Game Awards livestream, industry insider Jeff Grubb mentioned that one of Xbox's many 2025 games has been delayed to 2026. While Grubb doesn't know exactly which title, he went on to speculate about it being The Initiative's Perfect Dark reboot, which also showed up at Xbox's June showcase with its gameplay reveal. However, it didn't have any sort of release window attached and, judging by reports of the project's rocky development over the past few years, seems more like a 2026 or 2027 release; it doesn't seem like Xbox ever considered releasing it in 2025 in the first place.
During the stream, Jeff Grubb also mentioned that The Outer Worlds 2 was moved up to 2025 to take the place of the game that slipped into 2026. As for which big Xbox game this could possibly be, it's likely not Obsidian's Avowed, which has already seen a delay and is ready to go in February. South of Midnight also seems unlikely considering its big gameplay blowout it released a few weeks ago.
Between Doom: The Dark Ages and Fable, the latter seems more likely to have been pushed to 2026, as it was already rumored for a late 2025 release. While some Fable gameplay snippets have been showcased, The Dark Ages' action-packed gameplay reveal indicated that it's likely closer to release than Playground's fantasy RPG reboot. Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution also fit the description if they indeed were given internal 2025 windows.
It will be very interesting to see whether Xbox decides to do another Developer Direct in late January as it's done the past two years. If so, Xbox may forego showing Avowed again in favor of highlighting its other first-party 2025 games, like South of Midnight and Doom: The Dark Ages. Depending on what shows up at the event, Xbox fans may be able to glean which big Xbox title could have been hit with a 2026 delay.
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Source: https://gamerant.com/xbox-game-delayed-2026-report-perfect-dark-fable-rumors/
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