The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premiered yesterday, and much like Disney+ predecessor WandaVision, everyone seems to be talking about it. The show follows Falcon (Anthony Mackie), who has taken up the mantle of Captain America and must team up with Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) to embark on a worldwide adventure. Mackie has played Falcon in several movies for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he also starred in the second season of Netflix show Altered Carbon. However, when Mackie isn't busy with film and TV work, he also apparently likes to play video games.
Mackie recently sat down with Xbox to talk about video games and play Xbox Game Pass for the first time. Xbox Game Pass has done crossover ads with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing Falcon playing video games after he was blipped away for five years, and now Mackie gets to play video games as himself. In the Xbox Sessions video, Mackie plays on the Xbox Series X and discusses his history with gaming.
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As Mackie boots up Forza Horizon 4, he classifies himself as an "old-school" gamer who remembers getting excited about the graphics of the arcade Donkey Kong games. He also gives himself a four-out-of-10 for his gaming skills, which might be accurate considering he earns last place in his Forza race. Mackie says Xbox Game Pass is "actually great" and talks about the sheer number of games available with the subscription service.
He also takes some time to promote The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. After WandaVision hooked even non-MCU fans to become a big success, one might think Mackie would be nervous to follow up. Mackie does say he was initially worried that Marvel wouldn't able to capture the "scope and magnitude" of MCU movies on TV, but he is confident that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will have that same grandiose atmosphere for fans. He also stresses that the TV show format means fans will get more of Falcon's backstory.
Though Mackie probably didn't get too much time to play it, he seemed to enjoy Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The game was released in March 2020, several months before the year-end game awards shows, but it still managed to pick up Xbox Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. Ori and the Will of the Wisps developer Moon Studios have discussed the benefits of the game's day one release on Xbox Game Pass, and more developers seem to be experimenting with that option. The looter-shooter Outriders will release day one on Xbox Game Pass as well, and it seems poised to have a great run on the service.