Donette Brumby

At one point the open world crime genre was packed with titles, but since then most have cleared the way for Grand Theft Auto . Mafia 3 , however, is trying to stake its claim on the genre with a unique setting, a unique main character, and some clever mob mechanics. Set in a city not unlike New Orleans, Mafia 3 has players taking control of Lincoln Clay , an African American vet who is trying to build up his own mafia in order to take down a rival mob. While the Mafia games have always explored the management aspect to building up a squad of loyal enforcers, Mafia 3 makes it feel like you are really developing your own ma Ship customization seems to be another thing unearthed by the data-pirates. The files found seem to imply the ability to customize a ship's cannons, capstan (pirate talk for 'anchor holder'), livery, mast, and the captain's wheel. There are additional sections as well, listed under 'Ship misc' is a harpoon For those who aren’t aware, Cuphead is a "run-and-gun platformer" created in the style of 1930s cartoons. Players will enjoy a single-player campaign, along with multiplayer action. Like the other games on this list, there is still plenty of details yet to be shared about Cuphead , but needless to say, gamers are already lining up to grab this unique indie ti At the upcoming E3 event, Phil Spencer and the rest of the Xbox crew are planning to give plenty of stage time to the games coming for the Microsoft console. And while not every game coming out this year has yet been revealed, there are plenty that have already been announced and are set to arrive in the coming months. In that vein, here are five Xbox One exclusives on the horizon that look poised for succ Finally, there’s State of Decay 2 , the sequel to Undead Labs’ smash hit State of Decay . Like its predecessor, State of Decay 2 will throw players into a world full of zombies and task them with making it to the end with a group of struggling survivors. And of course there will be permadea "One of the things we’re very aware of is the need for the balancing to be right. After running some recent tests, we found that PC players were 4.5% more efficient at killing skeletons than Xbox players, and this feels close enough that it’s something we’ll continue to monitor. However, PvP between platforms, or more importantly device input, is the big focus point for us as a Design team, and already we’ve been working closely with the Game Experience team to change the way the guns work to be better balanced for cross play. We’ve put in a bunch of telemetry around this, and with the change to guns it’s made them feel tonally so much more fitting, as previously they felt more like laser weapons than ancient plundered-and-pillaged gunpowder-driven blunderbuss Lawbreakers feels like the game that Cliff Bleszinski and the Boss Key team was destined to make. A flashy spiritual successor to the multiplayer FPS titles of yesteryear, Lawbreakers is unapologetic in its approach. The game doesn’t want to fit in with the Joneses, but instead chooses to deliver an experience that follows a specific vision. Most importantly the game just looks like it delivers loads of fun. Something we are very happy to see Cliffy B get back Microsoft has officially announced that Rare's multiplayer pirate action game Sea of Thieves will feature cross-play between Xbox One and PC. The announcement came during today's Xbox Gamescom livestream, which included some new trailers, a few announcements, and concluded with the launch of Xbox One X pre-orders. But cross-play for Sea of Thieves could be the biggest surprise, with the game's closed technical alpha implementing the feature, effective immediat Sea of Thieves weapons|https://seaofthievesfans.com/ of Thieves is an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive with no currently announced release window, though it is part of Microsoft's Play Anywhere program . Expect more information on Sea of Thieves in the months to c The most important element to call out in terms of our general approach to combat is that Sea of Thieves is a game with guns and swords in it, but it’s not a game all about guns and swords. We want Sea of Thieves to support different motivations and playstyles, but when combat does occur, it should feel right for the pirate experience we’re creating, while fully supporting the kinds of emergent encounters that can occur while out on a voy Undead Labs has revealed that it plans to release new details about State of Decay 2 at this year’s E3, but in the meantime has released a handful of screenshots and a reveal trailer that show how much the developer has learned these last few years. It’s obvious the sequel will incorporate many of the features gamers loved about State of Decay , while also injecting new features that players have been asking for since the first game in the series released. There’s little doubt State of Decay 2 will be one of Xbox’s most successful exclusives this y