The next Xbox Developer Direct Showcase officially has a date. It will air later this month and feature two returning Xbox staples, Fable and Forza, as well as something very different: Pokémon studio Game Freak’s post-apocalyptic action RPG Beast of Reincarnation.
On Thursday, Xbox revealed its next big Dev Direct event will happen on January 22 at 1:00 pm EST / 6:00 pm UK. As with past Dev Directs from the company, this one will focus on deeper dives into a smaller handful of games than your average big showcase. This time around, Xbox is promising fresh looks at three games, Fable, Forza Horizon 6, and Beast of Reincarnation, all of which are set to arrive in 2026. And interestingly, two of the three games, Fable and Forza, are from the same studio, Playground Games.
Beast of Reincarnation, on the other hand, is from Pokémon maker Game Freak, and is probably the most exciting inclusion in this upcoming Dev Direct. It’s rare that Game Freak develops games for non-Nintendo hardware, and it has never worked on a game of this scale before that wasn’t part of the Pokémon franchise. Here’s the latest trailer for the game:
First announced in 2023 as “Project Bloom” and later showcased again in 2025 at a previous Xbox Dev Direct Event, Beast of Reincarnation is a post-apocalyptic action RPG that has been compared to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Nier: Automata. The project is being led by Kota Furushima, a longtime Game Freak dev who previously worked on Pokémon‘s battle system, among other things, and is set to launch in 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. And it will be available on Game Pass, too.
I’m still not convinced that Fable, which feels like it’s taking forever to launch, will actually arrive in 2026, but I’d love to be proven wrong. Either way, a new Forza Horizon, especially one taking place in Japan, has me excited, and I’m extremely curious to see more of what Game Freak is working on. So I’ll be tuning in on January 22 to watch. Also, because it’s my job.
