One of Xbox Game Pass' biggest supporters is going cosmic horror with its first sequel, and we just got our first look

It's Xbox Partner Preview day, and that means over a dozen new game announcements and reveals from a diverse range of third-party Xbox partners. It's also the perfect stage for indie studio Cococucumber to reaffirm its long-running relationship with Xbox by announcing its next game — and its first ever sequel.

This is Echo Generation 2, an ambitious and darker follow-up to the 2021 original that expands the world, mixes up the gameplay, and evolves Cococucumber's distinct voxel art style. We got our first trailer today, but I also had an opportunity to speak with Vanessa Chia, Game Director & Producer and Martin Gauvreau, Game Director & Lead Programmer at Cococucumber ahead of the game's announcement.

What I learned is that Echo Generation 2 isn't just more of the same, and I'm interested enough that I've already gone and installed the first game so I can experience it before its sequel arrives on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass in 2026.

A returning universe, but a very different game

Echo Generation 2 - Reveal Trailer | Xbox Partner Preview 2025 - YouTube

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If you care to go back in time, we reviewed the first Echo Generation and praised it for its gorgeous voxel style, challenging turn-based combat, and engaging narrative. A lot of my time speaking with Lead Programmer Martin Gauvreau, though, was talking about how different they set out to make Echo Generation 2.

"It's both a prequel and a sequel," Gauvreau told me. Rather than continuing as the two children that led the previous title's story, you'll play as the father in Echo Generation 2 — and the game will actually start several years before the events of the first game.

Echo Generation 2 will lean considerably further into its supernatural elements, though, scaling beyond the borders of the first game's small-town setting to explore worlds and galaxies, bending time and space to tell a new, all-encompassing story that is larger, darker, and more violent.

There's going to be a lot more horror in Echo Generation 2, and Cococucumber's unique style has evolved to match it. "How far can we go with voxel?" Gauvreau asked, going on to explain out Echo Generation 2 blends voxel art with smooth, detailed animations, real-time lighting, and other techniques to bring it to a level we haven't seen from the studio yet.

Above all of that, though, Cococucumber went in a very different direction with its turn-based combat and general gameplay. Echo Generation 2 has done away with the "Comic Books" of the first game, moving to a deck-building, card-collecting system. There will be many dozens of interlocking cards in Echo Generation 2, with countless strategies that players can switch between as they build different decks.

These cards will heavily impact gameplay outside of combat, too. "We took a lot of risks and changed a lot of big aspects from the first game," Gauvreau told me, commenting on how the team asked themselves if they were changing too much for players who loved the first game.

All I know is that the passion with which Gauvreau talked about Echo Generation 2 and the ambitions of the team has made me very excited to play.

A tight partnership with ID@Xbox and Xbox Game Pass

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The first Echo Generation released into Xbox Game Pass, beginning Cococucumber's close partnership with the ID@Xbox team and Xbox as a whole. Then, in 2023, I covered comments from Cococucumber praising Game Pass following the successful launch of Ravenlok, its fantasy action-adventure game.

Cococucumber has been one of the most vocally supportive studios of Xbox Game Pass, and its relationship with Xbox has apparently only grown closer. "For us, it was a no brainer to work with Microsoft and Xbox on Echo Generation 2," Vanessa Chia told me.

Xbox Game Pass has provided Cococucumber with a ton of visibility it otherwise may not have gotten as a small indie team, and ID@Xbox has assisted with resources, tools, and marketing — even me being able to talk to Chia and Gauvreau was due to Xbox working as a mediator between us.

"Only good things to say about them," Chia said. Echo Generation 2 is taking full advantage of the Xbox ecosystem, launching day one into Xbox Game Pass sometime in 2026 and fully supporting Xbox Play Anywhere (so you only have to buy it once to play across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud Gaming).

FAQ

How can I watch the latest Xbox Partner Preview?

[4K] Xbox Partner Preview | November 2025 - YouTube

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The latest Xbox Partner Preview event aired at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET on Nov. 20, 2025, and can be streamed in 4K and 60 FPS at YouTube.com/Xbox. There's also a separate stream for Audio Description at YouTube.com/Xbox, and another for American Sign Language (ASL) at YouTube.com/Xbox.

Alternatively, you can watch the show live (in 1080p and 60 FPS) at Twitch.tv/Xbox. Wherever you watch, there will be live subtitle support in English, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, and Mexican Spanish, with more languages to come in the days following the show.

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