Since launch day of the original Xbox, Microsoft’s gaming division has been irrevocably tied to Halo, so it’s no wonder it put the shooter genre front and center in its marketing and made it the focus of first-party game development. The Xbox franchise that carries the most brand awareness outside of Halo is Gears of War, a cover shooter that originated on the Xbox 360. While the emphasis on shooters worked for one generation of consoles, Microsoft’s reliance on a single genre became a serious problem when shooters fell out of fashion, causing the Xbox to lose relevance.
That’s not to say shooters aren’t big sellers. The yearly Call of Duty installment lands at #1 on sales charts almost every year, and Fortnite is the biggest thing in gaming. But despite its devoted following, Call of Duty is rarely discussed in games media or brought up during Best of the Year…
