‘Grounded’ launches in September 2022 with a full campaign

If you’re looking to fight ants, scale fences, zip wire across grass and wear questionable helmets, Grounded is finally out of Game Preview and coming to Xbox Game Pass this September. 

Obsidian Entertainment’s first-person survival game is adding new bosses (including a giant mantis), the freedom to roam the entire backyard — please remember you’ve been shrunk — expansive armor customization options, base defenses and more biomes to discover.

The main upgrade from the preview will be a full story campaign, which appears to include creepy robots, lasers and ’90s era computer interfaces. 

And if you don’t like bugs, you might want to skip this one.

Persona 3, Persona 4 and Persona 5 are coming to Xbox Game Pass

We didn’t see it coming. Microsoft is working with Atlus to bring the three latest mainline Persona games to Xbox Game Pass. Yes, that includes Persona 3 Portable, which was first released back in 2009 — on the PlayStation Portable. All three titles will arrive in their advanced versions with expanded content, in-game features and more. 

Persona 5 Royal will be the first game to land on October 21st. For the other games, Xbox promised that every game you’re seeing at its Summer Game Fest will arrive to play in the “next 12 months”.

‘Diablo IV’ lands in 2023 with Necromancers and an open world

Given that Microsoft will soon be the new owner of Blizzard Activision, there was bound to be some kind of Diablo announcement at its Summer Game Fest showcase. While we knew a direct sequel was coming as far back as November 2019, we got yet another deeper look at Diablo IV, which was once pushed back… indefinitely. Now expect to see it land sometime in 2023. 

The developers are promising a different style of Diablo, with open-world exploration, more substantial character customization and what appears to be the ability to switch playstyle with different skills. 

If players clear out the evil from certain areas, and they’ll turn into friendlier places for trade and everything that isn’t hacking away at monsters. Expect to see specific zones for PvP duels, and a kind of adaptive difficulty where talented players will get marked out in the open world.

For anyone not quite taken by the mobile-centric Diablo Immortal, it can’t come soon enough. There hasn’t been a new Diablo game in 10 years. If you have been waiting that long, beta pre-registration is now open here.