XBL Summer of Arcade release schedule

By Fred Dutton Published 27 June, 2011

Buy the lot, get Crimson Alliance free.

The full schedule for this year's Xbox Live Summer of Arcade season has gone live.

Kicking things off on 20th July is delightful isometric action RPG Bastion from SuperGiant Games, priced at 1200 Microsoft Points.

Erich Chahi's ambitious god game From Dust follows on 27th July, then Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet on 3rd August, both also asking 1200 Points.

The Kinect-friendly version of smartphone phenomenon Fruit Ninja arrives on 10th August at 800 Points, with tower defense sequel Toy Soldiers: Cold War bringing proceedings to a close on 17th August for 1200 Points.

Finally, Microsoft has announced that if you buy all five titles, you'll get a free download of multiplayer RPG Crimson Alliance, which is due out on XBLA on 7th September for 1200 Points.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • Pastici #1 11 months ago

    Dust and Bastion I'm interested in, for 1200 points Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet has just dropped off my radar.

  • TheVoice #2 11 months ago

    I'm still waiting for Fez. :(

  • SuperBas #3 11 months ago

    Dust is that game with the landshaping tech demo?

  • irve77 #4 11 months ago

    1200 point ... PASS !

    £10 buys me full games not XBLA ones

    still waiting for guardian heroes :)

  • telboy007 #5 11 months ago

    I'm still waiting for Radiant Silvergun!

  • neilka #6 11 months ago

    Yep, let's hope it's made it beyond a tech demo given it's out in 30 days :)

  • Hunam #7 11 months ago

    1200 points seems to be the new 800 points :(

  • muscleblade #8 11 months ago


    "£10 buys me full games not XBLA ones"

    All the xbla games i buy are full games. More so than retail games in many cases.

  • mumblyjoe #9 11 months ago

    If From Dust is in the summer of arcade thing when do us non xboxers get it??

  • darkmorgado #10 11 months ago

    From Dust is a timed exclusive... the PS3 and Steam versions currently just have a vague "late 2011" release window.

  • MatMan562 #11 11 months ago

    After initially thinking I knew none of the games in this, I actually want 4 of them (no prizes for guessing which one I don't) however 1200MSP seems like too much for each of them so I will wait until they're in the christmas sales like most of last years were.

  • Markusdragon #12 11 months ago

    £8.60ish each for a promising looking isometric RPG and the sheer rarity of a console god game sounds reasonable. Seems slightly less reasonable if you buy the points direct from MS though.

  • comedyjack #13 11 months ago

    Bastion + From Dust + Crimson Alliance = 30 quid well spent.

  • Tryhard #14 11 months ago

    Oh my little tribes people in From Dust how I will keep you from harm.Well 90% of the time hopefully.

  • agparrot #15 11 months ago

    Hang on a minute, I don't have Kinect, so what the fuck is the point of me buying all these games to get Crimson Alliance for free? I have Zero interest in Kinect Fruit Ninja, you bastards.
    Edited by agparrot at 27/06/11 @ 18:16

  • Xardan #16 11 months ago

    Some of the best new games of the year so far i bet, but you dont see people crying out loud about it because this is on XBLA and so doesnt get the attention deserved.

    About that arcade game Fez, when is that due?

  • Toothball #17 11 months ago

    Remember to check out Half Minute Hero when it lands later this week. Tremendously fun take on the RPG genre.

  • NunianVonFuch #18 11 months ago

    They're pricing themselves out of the market here unless any of these are absolutely brilliant I'll stick to getting full games for £10 with discs you can resell when finished with a few months after release.

    800 points is fine, 1200 doesn't even get a download from me anymore, I'll come check 'em out in the sales.

  • Xardan #19 11 months ago

    Christ you are a bunch of cheapskates arent you? The reason they are priced at 1200 is because these are very high quality arcade titles.

    These kind of games need and deserve your support! These kind of games dont come along very often! Have you seen the art style of Bastion for gods sakes!?

    Would you rather pay 40 pounds for a full retail game or buy all of these arcade titles for less? Its your decision.

    I know where my priorities lie and thats supporting these arcade titles that are beautiful and a breath of fresh air.

  • dancingrob #20 11 months ago

    @Xardan

    the point is more that I've already got 10 or so games sitting there 'unopened', including a couple of major titles like Red Dead Redemption.

    With this in mind, I'm quite happy to wait for the inevitable 800 point sale price to roll around at the tail end of the year, rather than succumbing to must have new shiny thing syndrome.

    Likewise, I'm happy to wait for Portal 2 / LA Noire to drop to sub £20, and will be waiting for the GOTY editions of AC Brotherhood and Fallout New Vegas, simply because I don't have time to play every new title I'm interested in the week it gets released.

  • Daeltaja #21 11 months ago

    Dust, Bastion and Crimson Alliance on my buy list. Looks like they'll fill the gap until September hits.

  • uzivatel #22 11 months ago

    @Hunam: Well, its not that easy:
    The 400MP category has pretty much moved to XBLIG for the most part. As such new 400MP XBLA games are rare.
    The 800MP category is still there, actually most of the new releases are priced 800MP and for the most part you get the same value for your points as you did back in the good old 800MP days.
    The 1200MP category is the most visible, because this is where you usually find the top XBLA games. While some of the 1200MP games are not worth the points, some 1200MP games offer great value. Castle Crashers, Lara Croft, Monday Night Combat and Shadow Complex are some of my favourite Xbox 360 games.
    The 1600MP category has always been most rare. It may sound expensive, but the Sam and Max games at 1600MP per season are actually cheaper than the PC version on Steam.
    Edited by uzivatel at 27/06/11 @ 20:14

  • darkmorgado #23 11 months ago

    It amazes me that people balk at the idea of spending 1200 points on a full, high quality game but they will lap up a couple of sodding maps for the same price.

  • Rack #24 11 months ago

    Obviously I'm not going to spend £135 to get a 1200 point title free. Real shame they're abandoning the idea behind Summer of Arcade giving you more for buying a few Arcade titles.

  • Spook #25 11 months ago

    cool, will be getting them all like i've done for the last 2 summer arcades offers and i agree with Xardan, these games will be worth the 1200 points each, but as always, there's one game that makes you think, "really? couldn't ms have found another game instead of that?". Last year was castlevaina (good, but out shone by the rest), year before that was TMNT reshelled and this year it's looking like fruit ninja (which on my HTC HD7 is very good) as i don't have kinect yet

  • Spectral #26 11 months ago

    The problem is their perceived value versus slightly older retail releases. For example £10 can get you Enslaved or Modnation Racers,etc with a couple of quid change. Not everyone buys every game they're interested in at launch.

  • slow2run #27 11 months ago

    The quality of some XBLA games, for example Shadow Complex, Limbo, Torchlight, to name but three are without doubt top draw. For those of us who have bought such titles from Microsoft know that the games themselves are often far better than a lot of AAA releases, in terms of production, innovation, and most importantly to me game play. Value for money wise they are also able to stand shoulder to shoulder with major disc distributed releases. To pay 1200mp to the distributor, publisher, and developer in the digital realm is an ongoing issue between us and them. The prices on Steam on the other hand......

  • berelain #28 11 months ago

    What about Guardian Heroes HD? It was supposed to be out this summer :(

  • Smudge1983 #29 11 months ago

    Errrrrrm Where is Wrecked Revenge?

  • ronuds #30 11 months ago

    So From Dust looks pretty interesting. What's the challenge, though?

    I'm not trolling, I genuinely want to know! I just see that it tells you what to do and you do it.

  • lockload #31 11 months ago

    I had it in my head that 1200 points was 15 pounds, but now i realise its 10 ill be getting probably bastion, dust and toy soldiers
    Edited by lockload at 27/06/11 @ 23:19

  • Subdominator #32 11 months ago

    Why buy them at full price when you can get them for 50 % off by xmas? Summer of Arcade just gets worse each year since 2009 (Trials HD, Shadow Complex, Splosion Man). For the second time they have to include a multiplatform game just to get the lineup (last year was Tomb Raider, this time it's From Dust) complete. Seems like developers don't want to be part of the SoA anymore, who can blame them when Microsoft takes 50 % of all revenue during promotions?

  • ShiroBen #33 11 months ago

    1200, 1200, 1200. I think I'll just wait for them to be discounted.

  • Trafford #34 11 months ago

    That's a good line up, something for everyone.
    Screw the price, I might buy them all.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #35 11 months ago

    Dear me fruit ninja made it into summer of arcade, thats just a synical way to put a kinect only game in there, dont get me wrong if you want a game where you cut fruit in half, fruit ninja does it as good as its going to get, but its far from being one of the worlds best games of the summer surely.

  • geeza2020 #36 11 months ago

    Not interested in any of these except possibly From Dust. Will wait for reviews on that one, but this years SoA seems a little lacklustre IMO.

  • evild_edd #37 11 months ago

    From Dust is looking like a day 1 purchase (assuming it doesn't suffer underwhelming reviews). ITSP looks really promising as well, but I may be able to hold out for it to go on sale.

    Will wait for a Bastion review. The vid looked interesting but not usuall my cuppa.

    Another good Summer of Arcade campaign from MS :0)

  • Rack #38 11 months ago

    £130 Kinect + 800 points for Fruit Ninja. Although since the Kinect would never get unboxed anyway I suppose you could make an argument for buying the whole summer of Arcade and just not getting a Kinect. I'm pretty sure that's possible and Fruit Ninja would get played exactly the same amount either way.

  • DAN.E.B #39 11 months ago

    I get what people are saying about 1200 pts games being of higher quality but wouldnt they make more money selling them at 800 pts?
    I mean it seems to be the sweet spot for purchases and more sales = more money
    its not like there are any packing or shipping expenses to recoop it just seems they are missing out on alot of potential buyers.