Xbox’s Sarah Bond dishes on Starfield, Game Pass and what to expect in 2023 — and beyond

There might not have been a proper E3 this year, but sitting in the Novo Theater in Los Angeles earlier this month as big cheers erupted for two hours’ worth of big game reveals and deep dives, the spirit of gaming’s biggest annual convention was alive and well. The Xbox Games Showcase 2023 was a statement for the Seattle games maker, one that felt especially vital at a time when the brand is facing criticism for a dearth of quality first-party titles; the kind that Sony has with The Last of Us, or Nintendo’s new Zelda game that’s currently dominating the lives of anyone with a Switch.

Following Microsoft’s big summer gaming event, I had the chance to sit down with Sarah Bond, Head of Xbox Creator experience and one of the key leaders bringing the green brand into the future. Here’s everything I learned, including the big Xbox launches to expect this year, new updates on Game Pass, the company’s push toward diversifying gaming and, yes, how the brand plans to bounce back from its rockier moments in 2023.

A big Xbox lineup for 2023 — and recovering from Redfall

The Xbox Games Showcase started with a bang — kicking things off with the first real footage of the long-awaited Fable reboot — and got a raucous crowd reaction that rarely let up for the next hour or so that followed. This year’s show had something for everyone, including the big new Star Wars game, promising indie and third-party titles like Path of the Goddess and Dungeons of Hinterberg and exciting new content for games like Sea of Thieves and Cyberpunk 2077. But more importantly, it felt like a promise that Xbox is finally ready to bring legitimate first-party blockbusters back to its lineup — especially at a time when the company’s latest major release fell flat.

Last month’s Redfall had everything going for it. It was a cool-looking cooperative vampire shooter from the folks at Arkane, a studio known for thrilling first-person action games like Dishonored and Deathloop that give you an entire sandbox of ways to creatively take down your enemies. Despite Redfall retaining some of that classic Arkane DNA, many reviewers — including our own Ural Garrett — panned the game for performance issues, repetitive and dull missions and a frustrating always-online requirement. It was a dud when Xbox really needed a hit, especially in the wake of Sony’s God of War: Ragnarok and Nintendo’s all-consuming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But Bond sees a positive to all the blowback.

“[Our fans] are deeply, deeply passionate. So even when things happen that aren’t the way we wanted them to go, the passion, the reaction that you see in that, what I actually see is love,” says Bond. “They believe in us; they want it to work so badly. But I think the thing that it’s important to realize is it takes years and years and years to build great games and to build the type of portfolio that we got to share with you today.”

While the games we saw at this year’s showcase have been years in the making, Microsoft’s overall presentation of them felt like a reassurance that big Xbox games are here to stay. The revamped Fable — with its cheeky English humor and shimmering fantasy world — could be Xbox’s answer to Zelda, while the strikingly animated South of Midnight, the BioShock-like Clockwork Revolution and the psychological horror Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II look like they’ll combine for a strong, diversified lineup through 2024.

Of course, none of these titles are more consequential than Starfield, which is not just 2023’s biggest Xbox release but one of the most anticipated video games in years. Made by the folks behind huge hits like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout (both role-playing franchises known for their massive scope and vast amount of player choice), Starfield looks to blow its already ambitious predecessors out of the water by letting you freely explore, battle and build throughout an entire galaxy — one that includes a whopping 1,000-plus planets that you’re free to visit.

“Is that a game or is that a universe?” says Bond, who’s been one of the lucky few who’s gotten to play Bethesda Game Studios’ hotly anticipated upcoming space adventure. “We’re going to call it a game, but let’s face it, what the team did there redefines what it means to build an experience like that and to live in it.”

Xbox followed its Game Showcase with a 50-minute deep dive dedicated to Starfield, and it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer amount of stuff you can do in this game — from piloting a spaceship throughout the galaxy and building your own outposts to engaging in bouncy, dynamic shootouts. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Xbox’s entire 2023 is riding on this game, but based on what we’ve seen so far, we’re cautiously optimistic that it’s going to deliver.

New Xbox hardware and more ways to use Game Pass

Microsoft isn’t just debuting a bunch of new games this year — it’s also giving you a few new ways to play them. The company recently took the wraps off of its $349 Xbox Series S Carbon Black console, which gives Xbox’s excellent entry-level system twice the storage at 1TB (and a sleek, matte black colorway) for just $50 more than the base model.

“We just got really consistent player feedback that this is something that they wanted,” says Bond. “People loved the black [of the Series X], people wanted more storage, but people liked the size and the great portability of the Series S.”

There are already a ton of ways to use your Xbox Game Pass subscription — whether you’re playing on a console, cranking things up on PC or streaming to phones, laptops and even Samsung TVs via the cloud — and now Microsoft is throwing one more into the mix. Later this year, you’ll be able to access your Xbox Game Pass for PC library via Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service. This is significant, as GeForce Now (which streams to computers, phones and select TVs) essentially gives you access to a tricked-out gaming PC in the cloud, one that can pump out immersive 4K gameplay that’ll likely top what you’ll get by simply streaming Xbox console games from the internet.

“We saw this opportunity with what Nvidia was doing on GeForce Now to partner with them to give people another option. And why would we hold that back?” says Bond. “It’s all about giving people diversity of options. It’s all about unlocking gameplay.”

Bond also noted that PC Game Pass players are up 46% year over year, so don’t be surprised to see even more big Windows titles come to the service. There’s no specific release date for when Xbox Game Pass games are arriving on GeForce Now, but Xbox says to expect it in the coming months.

Building an Xbox for everyone

One of Bond’s key responsibilities at Xbox is helping lead the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program, which is designed to give underrepresented game makers the resources they need to get their games out there to a large audience of Xbox players. We got to see some of the fruits of that program with 11 intriguing titles shown at last week’s Games Showcase Extended livestream, from Chessarama, a quirky, creative spin on chess, to Drag Her!, a fighting game that lets you battle with drag queens. These games are made by (and feature) people whose voices aren’t as dominant in the gaming space, from the Black, Indigenous, Latino and LGBTQIA+ communities to folks with disabilities.

“People under 25 spend more time in games than doing anything else, even social media, which is hard to believe. But the creators that are making those stories are not representative of everyone on the planet yet. And the greatest way to get representation, in my view, is to have the creators of the media be representative,” says Bond.

“And because the industry is traditionally still grounded in East Asia, Western Europe, North America, that meant that we were accidentally making it harder for creators from certain backgrounds to break in. So let’s create a program to help move us forward.”

Looking at all of Xbox’s recent initiatives, from the ubiquity of Game Pass and an affordable new console to its continued push toward accessibility and diversity, it’s clear that the company is looking to offer something for everyone through 2023 — and not just in terms of game genre.

As one of the key minds helping lead this charge, Bond sure seems to have her plate full. So, how does she plan to unwind from it all? By escaping into a great game just like the rest of us, of course.

“I’ve decided that I’m going to dedicate my summer to Diablo 4,” says Bond. “I’m just going to go in real deep.”