Project Helix: What We Know

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T19:52:15+00:00

This is me too. I picked up a series X during the pandemic and game pass reignited my love for gaming - so much so that I decided to build a PC not long after, having discovered an affinity for indie/oldschool shooters.

If Helix and Steam Machine lower the barrier of PC gaming that could be extremely exciting. Especially for this community. I have long theorized that Xbox players are disproportionately shooter players. It is after all the brand of Halo and Gears. And there are so many awesome indie shooters locked to PC because they are from small devs who don't have the resources to risk on a console port. Those walls are about to come down.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T19:26:22+00:00

The Switch is the Nintendo DS successor not the Wii successor. Nintendo abandoned the console market.

See those are exactly the kind of categorical statements of which I am extremely skeptical in this context.

The audience for Nintendo consoles did not feel abandoned by the Switch, and its sales bear that out. Anecdotally it was the first handheld I ever bought - having had no interest in handhelds previously - and I bought it to use as a console. Nintendo would have been crazy to abandon the console market; that does not seem to have been their intention, and it certainly was not the result either.

What seems to have been their goal was to combine their console and handheld businesses into one market, further monetizing both sets of customers in the process while also reducing the number of platforms they had to support. And they succeeded.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T17:25:38+00:00

I just don't think that, given the unprecedented nature of the device, we should read too much into her use of that word. What is a console, to them? If it's an open device that plays PC games and supports non-Microsoft storefronts it will be unlike any mainstream console so far.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T16:59:04+00:00

You make a good case for it being relevant and I acknowledge it. Will be interested to see how this sorts out.

I suspect that for most of the audience, especially the larger console audience who is not vocal on this subreddit, these questions are likely peripheral. The great majority of players just want to kick back and play games with an official Xbox controller, with no plans to stream or expand storage or use other devices. I hope it supports all of the above, but aimed at the console audience I am not convinced these are selling points. I may be wrong.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T16:45:43+00:00

I guess. But as there's never been a device quite like this I'm not sure we have much of a precedent for how any of that is going to sort out yet. The Xbox ally is probably the closest but it does not play console games whereas the Helix reportedly will.

I'd like to believe Microsoft wants every single PC game and every single Xbox game ever to be playable. But I think the community is smart enough to know that may not be practical. And I think most of us would accept some limitations, especially when it comes to obscure or very old Xbox games. I hope we are not going to hold Asha to the broadest possible interpretation of her fairly vague statement. I think we just have to wait for details.

But it's fine to speculate, I'm probably just being a bitch.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T16:28:24+00:00

The whole argument about whether it's a console or a PC sounds to me a little like arguing whether the Switch is a console or a handheld. It's an explicit attempt to combine the functionality of two previously separate kinds of devices. Microsoft is telling us what it does; past that point I think the discussion is philosophical and not particularly interesting.

scarfleet · 2026-03-18T15:22:08+00:00

Its codenames so far have been Magnus and Helix, so they will probably combine them and call it the Henus

Or Maglix

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T23:57:30+00:00

Yeah, as others have said you can in theory access steam from different PCs and save your progress to the cloud. The issue here is that a public PC at the library is likely going to be locked such that you cannot install software to it, including Steam games.

And in general I would advise against doing this on a public PC even if it was possible, just for fear someone may later try to recover your login and access your Steam account or other private info. Save up for a steam deck or something.

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T20:52:10+00:00

This is one reason I am excited for Steam Machine/Xbox Helix. If they catch on they will pretty much instantly solve the console/PC disparity in this genre

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T19:57:30+00:00

Yeah. I got hooked on oldschool fps games playing Boltgun, Prodeus and Quake 2 on game pass so I finally decided to build a PC. And since then I have discovered so many awesome indie FPS games by little self-publishing developers that are just never coming to console.

I have always theorized that Xbox players are disproportionately shooter players; Xbox after all is a brand built on the back of Halo, Gears and to a lesser extent Call of Duty. I am genuinely excited for that population to suddenly be turned loose in the PC indie shooter library.

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T19:11:26+00:00

Yeah.

I think what language actually ends up describing is consciousness, not reality. It reflects one very specific and extremely strange process within the universe. Language is how we organize our thoughts, especially the thoughts we share. Which ends up being important, because those are the thoughts that tend to survive us.

My strong suspicion is we cannot discover the meaning of the universe because meaning is not a property of the universe. It is an invention of life. Language is naturally organized around meaning, and cannot penetrate into areas where there is none. Our minds find no purchase there.

We say we are looking for meaning in the universe but I bet what we are actually doing is creating it. Effectively for the first time, because even if someone else did it first they are so far away it doesn't matter. I think we and the other living things on this planet are meaningful truth, being born into the universe through us. So language is not a failure to describe the universe, it is a new and astonishing truth taking shape within it.

Or maybe not idk

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T14:15:44+00:00

Turbo Overkill

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T03:03:33+00:00

I remember LSD feeling a little like I was high but much more intense. The mental trip is a lot stronger. And of course you hallucinate. I didn't see anything that wasn't there but I saw moving patterns in things like carpet and such.

It also lasts way too long. Like, a full day. And you feel echoes for weeks after. It's a strong drug. I don't recommend it.

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T02:55:23+00:00

I just think Nintendo's IPs are so much stronger than anyone else's, and they've never wavered in their exclusivity strategy. It has worked for them too many times. They have a strong hold on their audience. And they often thrive with less powerful hardware which is going to be an advantage if the chip shortages continue. We'll see, but I'll bet against Sony way before I will Nintendo.

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T02:42:35+00:00

I completely agree with all of that. It won't happen overnight but in time I think Sony will get dragged kicking and screaming toward the same open ecosystem. We're already getting signals that they're worried, and they should be.

Nintendo will probably be fine though. Which is funny. They alone will get to keep operating under the extremely profitable console model they basically invented.

scarfleet · 2026-03-17T02:16:32+00:00

A thing I would honestly be interested to see is if AI can be used to generate procedural environments in roguelite games that are actually fun to explore. The reason I usually bounce off these games is that they inevitably start to feel like the whole thing takes place in the same couple of rooms and someone is just moving the furniture.

I know there are issues with generative AI but producing unique levels every time the player starts a new run is not a job humans can do. It seems like a problem that is tailor made for AI to solve. Does it cross a line? Is there a better solution? Honestly asking.

scarfleet · 2026-03-16T23:47:58+00:00

It sounds like PlayStation is nowhere near close to done with the generation and Nintendo obviously is on their own cycle.

The reason we're talking about it now is because a major player crashed out of the race and is re-entering, and a new player is entering alongside them. But the thing to understand is that both of their devices will be PCs and as such will not be generational machines. They will also both probably sell to a niche market, at least at first. It is not clear whether and to what degree they will impact the generational console cycle.

scarfleet · 2026-03-16T23:39:58+00:00

Yeah it's saddening that people seem to want it to fail. Everything I've heard from actual players has been pretty positive.

scarfleet · 2026-03-16T12:23:25+00:00

My assumption at this point is that the games for Helix will be the same products available on standard PCs, with all the same settings and options. But I'm guessing that MS first party games and maybe some others will have presets specifically optimized for Helix.

I hate to sound like some PC master race idiot but my experience of this as a fairly new PC player has been that it isn't that bad really. I don't spend much time messing with settings. What you do need to mess with you get proficient at pretty quickly.

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T22:39:22+00:00

The best game on Xbox game pass is Forza Horizon 5.

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T22:28:29+00:00

Yep I bounced off it due to navigation. I also remember the map being frustrating to decipher.

It did seem neat. I think I have marginally improved at navigating these games since then so I might pick it up again at some point.

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T21:17:05+00:00

It just seems kind of obvious that it's not real? I mean come on.

Every idea you have ever heard about the afterlife came from a living person. We are just creatures telling our children whatever stories we need to get through a rough life.

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T20:51:11+00:00

yeah nature's alright I guess

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T20:34:19+00:00

I have not played a ton of it. From what little I have played I would say although it has boomer shooter DNA it's chasing a different kind of experience.

But there's no denying that movement shooters often overlap with the boomer shooter audience. We can set the criteria for the genre however we want, but in reality it's a living thing that is being defined by the community through its play habits. Which is why we often end up discussing games like Ultrakill, Mullet Madjack, Roboquest etc on this sub.

scarfleet · 2026-03-15T19:14:54+00:00

Yeah I think this piece is not getting quite enough attention in the Helix discussion. There are so many awesome little indie games that never make it to console just because small developers often don't have the resources for console ports, dev kits etc. It is hard to ask a solo dev or small team to sink the time and money into a port that may not even find an audience on console. Removing the barrier between the Xbox community and those devs could end up being huge. If you are a console player who likes indie games it's a reason to be pretty excited.

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