Mid-March Xbox release lineup
Pearl Abyss's massive open-world game finally arrives next week alongside a batch of indie horror titles and a very specific volleyball visual novel.
Xbox has published its weekly release list for games hitting Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC between March 16 to 20. Beautiful Sakura Volleyball Club 2 was hard not to notice.
The heavy hitter of the week is Crimson Desert. Developer Pearl Abyss originally pitched this as a prequel to its massive multiplayer game Black Desert Online. The studio eventually pivoted the project into a standalone single-player action game. Black Desert Online built a massive audience thanks to its incredibly detailed character creator and fast combat. Pearl Abyss is trying to bring that same action combat to a strict single-player format here. You play as a mercenary named Kliff exploring the continent of Pywel. The game launches simultaneously on March 19 for Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC. The developers have confirmed the game includes Performance, Balanced, and Quality visual modes on console. PC players will have to deal with Denuvo DRM, which the studio confirmed ahead of launch.
Visual novels have found a surprisingly healthy audience on Xbox over the last few years. Microsoft's digital storefront is now packed with dozens of these narrative games. This is a sharp contrast to the Xbox 360 era when the genre was almost entirely locked to Japanese hardware.
Among the other releases is Emotionless: The Last Ticket. This one is optimized specifically for the newer Xbox Series consoles. The plot involves exploring a decaying amusement park built by the main character's missing father. The developers promise a mix of fractured reality and monsters that do not belong in our world.
Sony's baseball game hits Xbox again
The rest of the week fills out with a mix of sports and licensed games. MLB The Show 26 officially launches its standard edition. Sony San Diego continues to develop the baseball simulator. The franchise remains a multiplatform release across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo hardware due to MLB licensing requirements. The series was a PlayStation exclusive for over a decade before the baseball league forced Sony to open up the property in 2021. The game includes the usual mix of franchise management and the popular Road to the Show career mode.
The full list includes over 20 games. It is a typical mid-month drop with a few big budget titles hiding among a mountain of indie puzzle games and visual novels.
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