On Thursday, Xbox pulled back the curtain on the previously announced Xbox Developer Direct, showcasing new details on three Xbox offerings for 2026.
The Xbox Developer Direct for 2026 is here, and Microsoft brought out the big guns on their biggest stage to showcase some gameplay developments on previous announcements. After announcing earlier in the month that the Direct would happen today, Xbox mentioned it would showcase three already announced titles with new gameplay developments before the showcase, and they delivered. The Xbox Developer Direct became renowned when the 2023 Developer Direct surprised gamers with the “shadow drop” of Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush, which immediately gained a cult following almost as soon as it hit the Xbox storefront.
Last year’s Developer Direct gave fans a look behind the curtain at upcoming developments for South of Midnight, Sandfall Interactive’s GOTY winner, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and id Software’s DOOM: The Dark Ages. A new NINJA GAIDEN 4 announcement was prepared to kick everything off, but unlike last year, the surprises this time are in gameplay details themselves.
The Xbox Developer Direct 2026 is bringing new gameplay from two titles from Playground Games, with the UK studio bringing an extended look at Fable, as well as the debut of gameplay for Forza Horizon 6. Game Freak is also on the menu, offering a first in-depth look at Beast of Reincarnation. All of the details can be seen below, and each game will be available on Xbox Game Pass day one.
Xbox Developer Direct 2026 Highlights
Forza Horizon 6
The Xbox Developer Direct 2026 showcase started things off at the racing stripe, with Playground Games’ Forza Horizon 6. The team designed a campaign that focuses on the racer’s journey. You start out as a tourist (after the events of Horizon 5), intending to join the Horizon Festival, and eventually pilot the supercars that the series allows fans to joyride in. Your character won’t be going alone; two of your close friends are coming to experience this adventure with you. Jordy, a passionate motorsports enthusiast, and Mei, an experienced Japanese car builder. Mei’s character adds an insider’s perspective to your journey through Japan.
That insider perspective was mirrored in the real world by Playground Games’ Cultural Consultant Kyoko Yamashita. The Xbox Developer Direct 2026 also highlights the sense of exploration at the heart of the Forza Horizon 6 experience, and it will feature “over 550” cars at launch. In Forza Horizon 6, there’s a new R-class car, for track-focused racing, and Horizon is focused on bringing JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) culture to the forefront of Forza. This focus is outlined by the Forza Horizon 6 cover vehicle, the Toyota 2025 GR GT Prototype.
At the start of production, the team travelled to Japan to gather scans of the surrounding areas to ensure the re-created open world atmosphere of Forza Horizon 6 embodies the feel of going to the country itself, adding the multiple districts Japan is known for, alongside the stunning countryside and seasonal changes seen in the real world.
When you finally earn the coveted golden wristband through the Horizon Festival, they take off the training wheels and allow drivers to experience the breadth of Japan, like how the team explored Mexico in Forza Horizon 5. The developers say, “This is our largest map yet,” and the development team recruited experts in Japanese culture and car culture to get things just right and fine-tune the details surrounding Japan. Forza Horizon 6 introduces Car Meets, a feature also grounded in Japanese car culture. These meets are inspired by the Daikoku car meet – a world-renowned, spur-of-the-moment meeting place for races.
In Forza Horizon 6, fans will be allowed to build their own car compounds called The Estate. This is a home base that friends can visit whenever they’re allowed. This can allow the most radical of enthusiasts to share their home base creations, outside of the customizable car wrap market featured in other Horizon titles.
The Estate is an ‘Akiya’ in Japan, which is an abandoned piece of property in rural areas. These homes are often passed down through families, and as the cost of demolishing the building is often more than just leaving it, these buildings can sit and fall into disrepair, and this one is owned by Mei’s family. You have to fix it up and show it off to the world.
The Xbox Developer Direct 2026 revealed that fans will be able to build “anything they can imagine” onto tracks on the open world, and this functionality will be available in co-op as well. It also closed with a GUNDAM-like teaser, but nothing else has been explained aside from large mech-like feet standing over the cover car.
Forza Horizon 6 will launch first for Xbox on May 19, 2026.
Beast of Reincarnation
Next up, the Xbox Developer Direct 2026 took us to Game Freak studios, to check in on Beast of Reincarnation to show the company isn’t just known for bringing fans Pokémon. Beast of Incarnation is known as a one-player, one-dog, action RPG that features a post-apocalyptic Japan. Beast of Reincarnation doesn’t shy away from the idea of travelling alongside a creature companion; it embraces it with the new dog companion, Koo, and their relationship will be explored further alongside the protagonist Emma’s background.
Emma was born afflicted by “blight,” which has granted her the power to manipulate plants. Without memory and emotion, Emma is shunned and feared by those around her, living a life of total isolation. Koo is a Malefact: a creature that poses a dire threat to this world. Emma bears the burden of a “sealer,” a role that requires her to hunt these Malefacts and absorb their blight into her own body, and Koo is her sidekick companion of sorts.
The story takes place in 4026, and most of the human population has been wiped out by the Blight. Emma and Koo meet in a region in Japan, drawn together by isolation, but Koo has a mysterious purpose that will be outlined further in the title. Emma’s ultimate goal is to bring down the Beast of Reincarnation, threatening the capital, and only Emma can seal away Malefact blight, so it is a task they must embark on together.
Nushi are Boss lord-type Malefacts that will test the player’s mettle in battle, and coordinated attack patterns between Emma and Koo are tantamount to triumphing over these soul-like affairs. Blighted forests are home to these giant Malefacts known, and Emma and Koo must fight their way through these forests and the Malefacts to take down the Nushi. To defeat the Beast of Reincarnation, Emma and Koo have to absorb the Nushi’s immense power and acquire their respective skills.
Beast of Reincarnation smartly integrates beautiful Japan-inspired visuals and flora into gameplay, and this is shown when Emma uses vine-like hair to traipse through the landscape and in battle. Emma and Koo power each other up in combat and can unleash Blooming Arts that help tactically analyze the battlefield.
In one motion, Emma can create a lily that she perches on top of (using more of the Japanese Flora in battle), and in another breath, she can drop and slash enemies or use another action for a better vantage on the group. Blooming Arts lets players explore combat the way they choose, kind of like Devil May Cry or God of War’s combo systems in practice (with turn-based slowdowns for input), as shown at the Xbox Developer Direct 2026.
Each combat scenario can be explored with different optionality; players can use Blooming Arts, send Koo in first, sneak in and attack or jump headfirst into danger swinging. The choice is the players when Beast of Reincarnation launches at a TBD date later in the Summer of 2026.
Kiln
A surprise new announcement was then brought to the Xbox Developer Direct 2026, and it’s a new game announcement from the Psychonauts 2 developers at Double Fine Games. It’s an online “pottery brawler” called Kiln. This title features online multiplayer brawling, but between self-made clay pots, tying together the catharsis of creating pottery and smashing them into pieces. Creation of characters starts literally at the pottery wheel, and then players can take these unique creations online and battle each other in minigames. Although pottery is difficult in real life, players can become experts quickly.
In Kiln, pottery must carefully escort water to the opposing team’s Kiln and spill water on it to put it out. This embodies pottery capture the flag, with shattering pottery, careful water escorting, and key design choices that can help hold more water at the cost of maneuverability. Fans who have never touched a pottery wheel before will be able to construct any design they like, and each creation can do its best in skirmishes before it’s inevitably shattered.
As players (and pots) fight over the water on the battlefield, players will have to focus on map layouts, where some areas can only be explored by certain shapes and sizes. There are Greek god-inspired maps, Egyptian god punk venues, and even a nightclub where your pottery creations can hit the dance floor. Players and teams can create what they please and break it all down like a digital escape room (with Kiln quenching as the main objective).
In the game hub, players can create more designs and unlock more features to enhance gameplay, such as adding spouts to their unique creations. Fans ready to bring good vibes onto the battlefield (and destroy that plate your mom always told you to be careful with) can do so in Kiln.
Players can embody their pottery power fantasy in Kiln, when it launches in Spring 2026
Fable
The Xbox Developer Direct 2026 closed out the showcase with Playground Games once again, for the first deep dive into Fable. “What does it mean, to you, to be a hero?” That’s the question that follows the player in the new Fable, and in classic Fable fashion, players will begin the game as a child, and here in this moment of extreme danger, Albion’s first hero is born in a long time. The supposed ‘danger’ sees your grandma turn to stone, setting you off on an adventure.
Fable fans will recall the previous Bowerstone capital of Albion, as well as Bloodstone and the Heroes Guild; this time, these locations will be featured in full open-world gameplay. Fable will let players embody their exact ideal hero, with a full character creator and how the player plays their character helps round out their abilities. Using the fundamental foundations of previous Fable games (Strength, Skill and Will), the player’s hero can employ these abilities to devastate enemies and become their own hero.
Fan-favourite adversaries are returning in Fable: Hobbes, Balverines, and Trolls return, as well as new enemies like the fearsome Cockatrice. The developers have also keyed in on what makes Fable, Fable. Fans can behave not-so-heroically and ‘troll’ residents of Albion. Heroes can ‘play house’ in Fable, or play slumlord and buy every house in Albion and evict tenants. NPCs are all unique in Fable, and each has unique behaviour and names. If you evict a tenant after owning everything in the land, that person will be identified as the moniker “The Beggar,” and they will treat you with disdain.
Morality isn’t black and white in Fable; there are a lot of gray areas. If you do something that hurts poor people in Fable (like raising the cost of living), they will be upset, but rich people may respond differently, applauding your efforts. Your reputation is crafted by the decisions the hero makes, and some of these choices will terraform your version of Albion. In one example, a giant character (named Dave) can be spared or killed early on, and while he can help the hero while spared, his giant corpse is a reminder of your lack of morality that straddles the mountains outside of town as a reminder of how bad you are.
Fable in 2026 is doing what Fable does. Also, we have a release window, and Fable is coming to Xbox, PC, and PS5 in Autumn 2026.
That puts a lid on the Xbox Developer Direct for 2026. Fans looking for more information on any of the above titles can head to the official Xbox website.
