By: Nick Gambino
Just because there are no in-person gaming events happening this year, doesn’t mean there can’t be any gaming events at all. Microsoft has just announced that they’re holding a special online demo event as part of Summer Game Fest.
The online event, which will be live from July 21st to July 27th, will include access to more than 60 brand-new Xbox One games. They might have as many as 100 games once they’ve finalized everything for the event. The best thing about it is it’s free. Well, that’s one of the best things about it.
Another cool thing is that for the most part, these aren’t finalized or even nearly finalized games. A lot of them are early in the testing phase and have a lot of work to do before they’re ready for export. This means you’re really getting the show floor experience without the price of a plane ticket or risk of contracting a virus.
“These are not normal ‘game demos,’” Glenn Gregory, Senior Product Marketing Manager for ID@Xbox said in a blog post. “Typically, the demos you see in our Demo channel are created after the game is completed (or nearly completed) and represent the final version. Many of these demos are early, and some are for games that won’t be out for quite some time. We’ve never done this before; what that means is that you’ll get to experience these games early – some way early – which is awesome, but you should also note that these games will continue to evolve and be polished as they near release.”
They are still in the middle of nailing down exactly what games will take part in the festivities, so we don’t know much in the way of what’s going to be available. Titles confirmed to be on the Demo channel when it goes live on July 21st include:
- Cris Tales
- Destroy All Humans!
- Hellpoint
- The Vale: Shadow of the Crown
- Welcome to Elk
The chance to peek behind the curtain and see raw game demos right on your Xbox in your home is a really cool experience that you might never see again. I haven’t been gaming for quite a while and my Xbox One has been turned into little more than a Blu-ray player. This Demo event might change that.
