During Xbox's E3 2021 showcase, Avalanche Studios revealed Contraband, a co-op game set in a self-described paradise made in collaboration with Xbox Game Studios. Avalanche Studios is most known for the explosive Just Cause series as well as the team's work on Rage 2 alongside Bethesda and 2016's Mad Max. All of the studio's projects share crazy vistas, vast open worlds, and inventive weaponry, and the brief teaser of their next project seems to continue in those trends.
A partnership between Avalanche Studios and Xbox Game Studios was rumored before E3, but the truth was different than what people assumed. At one point, there was talk of Xbox acquiring Avalanche alongside IOI Interactive and Crytek. As seen in today's reveal, it seems that Xbox will publish Avalanche's next game, but it might just end there. It's also known that IOI has some sort of project in the works with Xbox at the moment, and it's possible that it will also be a publishing deal rather than a straight merger. The rumor also stated that the talks were still in the early stages, so it's also possible that the rumored merger will become official sometime in the future.
Thanks to today's release trailer, it is known that Contraband will be coming to Xbox Series X and Windows PCs via Xbox Game Pass when it eventually releases. Set in a fictional country called Bayan in the 1970s, Avalanche's game certainly evokes the chill mood of the decade throughout its reveal. Starting off on a record player with an appropriate soundtrack, the camera sweeps through a secret bungalow showing off plans for a heist to steal a chest. The audience later sees the chest was already stolen, which leads to a slick logo reveal that also fits in-universe. There's no sight in the video of who players embody in the game and no firm release date to share.
On the Xbox Wire blog, Contraband director Omar Shakir went into a bit more detail about Avalanche's new project. He reveals that it will run on the next generation of the Apex Engine, the tech that was behind the Just Cause series, and that Contraband builds directly from those games. "We’re taking everything that we’ve learned from 18 years of being at the forefront of creating beautiful, vast open game worlds filled with stunning vistas and incredible emergent gameplay moments."
It's clear that Contraband is still very early in its lifecycle, but it has the potential to turn heads when it does hit Xbox Series X and PC in the years to come. While Just Cause's explosive gameplay has always hooked the headlines over the years, Mad Max's engaging story-driven campaign and Rage 2's aggressive first-person combat was proof that Avalanche has a lot of range in what it can produce. If any of the open-world driving or interesting combat from those games comes over to Contraband and its co-op-focused heists, then Xbox may just have another bow in an ever-growing quiver of exclusives worth talking about.
Source: Xbox/Youtube, Xbox Wire