Everything we expect from Xbox in 2026, including Halo on PlayStation and the return of Fable
Halo on PlayStation and more wild happenings
· TechRadarFeatures By Lloyd Coombes published 29 December 2025
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Xbox is so hard to predict that looking ahead to another year feels like an impossible task. I’m not sure anyone expected Microsoft to make major layoffs and shut down entire studios, not least its ‘AAAA’ Perfect Dark one, but here we are at the end of 2025, wondering what’s going on.
Microsoft has already started to talk about hardware, but with prices of consoles and the Xbox Game Pass subscription service climbing, can it really convince players it’s still a player, and that they should invest in its ecosystem?
Despite it feeling near-impossible, here’s our look ahead to 2026 and what’s to come for Xbox.
Are exclusives A Thing anymore?
It feels a lot like Microsoft is ahead of the curve with exclusives in some ways. Games cost a fortune to make, so why recoup that cost from just one segment of the market? With Sony’s Helldivers 2 likely to be a first salvo of PlayStation games on Xbox, we might look back at it as the decision that saved the brand. We might also look at it as the choice that doomed it, with Xbox hardware harder to recommend than ever - especially at its current price point.
The next title seemingly hopping the fence from Team Green to Team Blue is Starfield, with various suggestions that Bethesda and Microsoft are planning a major overhaul of the game in conjunction with its release on PlayStation. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but it certainly feels likely as a way to generate more income for a game that was in development for a long, long time.
On the topic of jumping ship, this year will see Halo come to PlayStation — something that would’ve been absolute sacrilege not too long ago. Halo: Campaign Evolved only includes the single-player portion of the original, but we’d be very surprised if the Master Chief Collection doesn’t follow in crossing the border in time to give PlayStation players a chance to catch up.
Elsewhere, Forza Horizon 6 is slated for this year and will take the series to Japan after years of fan requests. We’ve not seen a lot of it yet, with just a tone piece trailer and no gameplay so far, but given how well-received the series has been since its inception, we’re expecting good things.
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