Enotria: The Last Song is a new, sun-drenched Soulslike inspired by Italian folklore and it’s out in just a couple weeks. But not on Xbox. While the game will be available for PlayStation 5 and PC players on September 17, the game has been indefinitely delayed on Series X/S over problems with the platform submission process and what the developer calls a lack of communication from Microsoft about getting the issues fixed.
“We’ve Xbox Series X/S version ready, but we can’t proceed with submission and release, I spent a lot of money for porting and they decided to ignore us,” Jacky Greco, CEO of Jyamma Games, the studio behind Enotria, recently told fans on Discord (via Windows Central). In an interview with Insider Gaming, the executive blamed a bug preventing Jyamma from being able to open its store page on Xbox and submit the game. Microsoft was apparently responsive at first before going radio silent on the developer.
Enotria is one of a number of recent and upcoming Soulslikes that try to take the punishing, stamina-meter-based combat pioneered by FromSoft and push it in new creative directions. While last year’s Lies of P took on Pinocchio and weapon crafting, and this summer’s Flintlock played with guns and the trappings of colonial empire, Enotria has tried to set itself apart with beautiful, sunny trailers and a mask system that switches up combat playstyles.
But Enotria is also one of an increasing number of games that are skipping Xbox at launch for mysterious, confusing, or otherwise frustrating reasons. Baldur’s Gate 3‘s absence from Xbox Series X/S due to optimization issues on the weaker of the two consoles was felt acutely a year ago. Black Myth: Wukong rekindled that nightmare for Xbox owners this summer, with speculation about whether missing Xbox at launch was due to hardware constraints or a secret exclusivity deal with Sony.
Funcom’s upcoming crafting survival sim Dune is also facing challenges coming to Xbox, but for other reasons. Out early next year, the game will be on PC first to iron out console issues. “There’s a lot of optimizations we need to do before we release on the Xbox,” chief product officer Scott Junior told VG247. “But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge.”“
Jyamma Games seems to be trying to make clear that Enotria hasn’t been indefinitely delayed on Xbox for either of those reasons, putting the blame squarely on Microsoft’s end. “You can ask Xbox why they haven’t answered us for two months,” Greco wrote on Discord. “Obviously they don’t care about Enotria and they don’t care about you.”
It’s great when Xbox exclusives come to PlayStation 5, letting a whole new group of players experience them irrespective of which $500 box they decided to purchase years ago. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way around for current Xbox owners, and increasingly it seems like they are missing out even on things that should be multiplatform at launch.
Update 8/4/2024 2:45 p.m. ET: Following his initial complaints, Greco now says that Microsoft is being attentive and collaborating with Jyamma to get Enotria on Xbox as close to launch as possible.
“We would like to officially thank Phil Spencer and his team for reaching out to us so promptly and helping to resolve our situation,” a new statement from the studio reads. “We are working closely with Microsoft, and we hope this collaboration will lead to the game’s release for Xbox as soon as possible.”