This week's X019 event is off to a strong start today with the announcement of the newest title from publisher Raw Fury, West of the Dead, starring actor Ron Perlman. It's likely that this is this game will be the first of many exciting titles teased at the conference, which is taking place in London and running until Saturday, November 16th.

The event in question played host to reveals of brand-new titles from both Xbox Game Studios' Rare and Obsidian. While Rare pulled the curtain back on Everwild, Obsidian wasn't far behind with the confirmation of its new title Grounded. Both titles should provide something very unique for players, and they'll double as strong Xbox exclusives as Microsoft builds towards the inveitable arrival of Project Scarlett in 2020. While these were but a few announcements, an indie title called West of Dead also made splash during the show.

According to PC Gamer, West of the Dead is available to play in beta until November 25th exclusively on the Xbox, and is set to release sometime in 2020, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass upon release. While the game is being published by Raw Fury, it was developed by Upstream Arcade, an independent game developer based in the UK.


In terms of genre, West of Dead seems like it could be best described as a cross between a classic dungeon crawler and a run-and-gun game, and is already drawing comparisons to beloved titles like Diablo. As far as story goes, there's not much to go on other than a dead man named William Mason is brought back to life, or whatever the equivalent of life in purgatory is, and is tasked with, well, killing things by a mysterious figure in black.

While Ron Perlman is best known for his work on the screen as Hellboy and Clay Morrow in Sons of Anarchy, he also has an extensive resume doing voice work, especially for games. He has worked on every single title in the Fallout series, and other games such as Halo 3, Payday 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Between the gorgeous, cell-shaded art style, the complex combat system, and the promise of an intriguing story, it wouldn't be surprising to see West of the Dead go down as one of the best Xbox exclusives there is. It sounds like Xbox is trying to really amp up their exclusives, considering that's a major selling point for the PS4, especially because they're not releasing any more Xbox exclusives for other platforms.