What to expect from Microsoft at E3 2015: Halo, Tomb Raider, and more

It feels like 2015 is the year that Microsoft could steal the momentum at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, but it’s going to have to deliver with big game announcements that resonate with consumers.

Microsoft has several games that it’s already revealed or talked about in some way, and it may have saved a few surprises for next week. The company will hold its E3 briefing on Monday, and we’ll know everything by lunch that day.

For now, let’s go over what we know and speculate about what we don’t.

The sure thing

These were already announced, so they should be at E3.

• Halo 5: Guardians. The next Halo is coming before the end of the year. Microsoft has to patch up relations with the fans of this series after the disastrous Master Chief Collection, and it can start with a strong E3 showing.
• Rise of the Tomb Raider. Sure, Uncharted 4 won’t hit the PlayStation 4 this year, but Microsoft’s system will get its own adventure game before Christmas.
• Elite: Dangerous. This space sim already has a ton of fans on PC, but now it may find an even larger audience on Xbox One.
• Forza Motorsport 6. Microsoft has shifted to an annual release cycle for Forza. Last year it was Forza Horizon 2, and this year we’re getting Motorsport 6.
• Fable Legends. A free-to-play multiplayer take on the franchise that has a lot to prove.
• 1TB Xbox One. The company confirmed that it will start selling a $400 Xbox One with a new paint job and 1TB of storage.
• New Xbox One controller. Microsoft has also revamped its controller with better bumpers and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The maybe

We won’t act too surprised if we see these games.

• Gears of War. The company has confirmed that it is upgrading Gears of War, but we don’t know if that only means the first game. It also seems possible that Microsoft will finally reveal the next real game in this series.
• Crackdown. We saw a trailer for this last year, but we haven’t heard anything about it since.
• Scalebound.

https://youtu.be/8-Ug9-OQIRU

And the “yeah, right!”

Stuff that probably won’t happen but wouldn’t it be cool!

• Quantum Break. Developer Remedy has already come out to say it is once again skipping E3 to show off Quantum Break at GamesCom in Germany instead.
• Battletoads. Microsoft owns these characters now, but c’mon … it wouldn’t.
• Something cool from Rare. Microsoft also owns Rare, and if the company isn’t making Battletoads (which it originally created), maybe it’s working on something else. But we say that every year, and instead we just got minigame collections and nothing else.