Featured Image Credit: Microsoft
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Microsoft
Xbox Game Studios is seemingly hiding a pretty major secret up its sleeve.
Twitter/X user bogorad222 has made a discovery pertaining to the LinkedIn profile of Jason York who previously worked as a senior games producer at Xbox Game Studios, parting ways with Microsoft in August of last year.
York’s LinkedIn profile confirms that he worked as a senior producer on an “unannounced AAA title (TBA)”.
That’s exciting, but not all that unusual. It’s perhaps obvious that Xbox Game Studios has unannounced titles in the works, most of which are AAA due to the nature of Xbox’s funding.
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However, the plot thickens.
York adds just above this that he “led Publishing’s unannounced, largest new IP/title from signing to production kickoff”.
I think it’s safe to assume that the project still hasn’t been revealed because if this project is as important as York makes it out to be, he’s most certainly going to want the IP listed on his profile as soon as it's public.
The problem is that it's impossible to guess what the game might be due to the very fact that it's a brand new IP.
That rules out it relating to any existing franchises.
Can we make anything of “largest new IP”? To state the obvious, Xbox must have high hopes for whatever this IP is, but we also don’t know what other new IPs the company has in the works.
The fact that this secret project is the “largest” requires the context, if you ask me, of all other new IPs in development.
Still, I think there is a very strong chance that we could be looking at something that’s been designed with major franchise potential in mind akin to, say, Gears of War, Fable, or Halo.
Ahead of his work on this secretive project, York acted as a senior producer on Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Ori and the Blind Forest, as well as overseeing the series’ various merch releases.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps launched in 2020, so it’s perhaps safe to assume that the secret IP has been in development for quite a number of years as York doesn’t seem to list any other projects post that 2020 game.
Could this secret project surface then at this summer’s Xbox Showcase?
I hate to sound like a broken record, but it’s impossible to say. I’ll certainly be hoping so.
It’s brand new territory for Xbox due to the recent departures of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond.
We know the green brand has a promising output this year though, with Gears of Way: E-Day, Fable, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Forza Horizon 6 all on the way.
Perhaps this surprise project will join the line-up, or at least be revealed.