Now that it owns Activision Blizzard and Bethesda as well as the Xbox Game Studios portfolio of developers, Microsoft is a game-publishing behemoth with a lot of projects in development. Some of those games were announced years ago and have now been in development for a very long time with little to show for it — for instance, Rare’s Everwild and Undead Labs’ State of Decay 3.
In an interview with Xbox Era, Microsoft Gaming head Phil Spencer brushed off development-hell concerns. He essentially said that Microsoft’s huge scale as a game publisher means it can give these studios time to get their games right.
Asked which unreleased first-party games he was most excited about, Spencer cited State of Decay 3, Everwild, and the next game from Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions.
“State of Decay is just one of the franchises I love back from the original one,” Spencer said. “I do think the work that Double Fine’s doing and how Tim kind of solicits feedback from the team. And the other one, I’ll say because I was recently out at Rare. It’s nice to see the team with Everwild and the progress that they’re making.”
Spencer acknowledged the long silences on the three games he mentioned. “It has been [a while],” he said. “And we’ve been able to give those teams time in what they’re doing, which is good, and still have a portfolio like we have. It’s like a dream that Matt [Booty] and I have had for a long time, so it’s finally good to be there. We can give those teams time.”
Indeed, Microsoft is under no immediate pressure to rush the release of any games. Its 2025 schedule is full to bursting with Obsidian’s Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, id Software’s Doom: The Dark Ages, Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight, Playground Games’ Fable, Team Ninja and PlatinumGames’ Ninja Gaiden 4, and more — not to mention, presumably, a new Call of Duty release.
Spencer also mentioned an upcoming visit to Gears of War developed The Coalition to see another long-in-development title, Gears of War: E-Day. The last Gears game was released in 2019. “I’ll be up there next week,” he said. “I’m like a pig in mud when they let me in the doors.”
