Phil Spencer Wants You To Stop Reading Into His T-Shirt Choices

Phil Spencer, the CEO of Xbox Game Studios, was seen wearing a Hexen: Beyond Heretic t-shirt during the recent Xbox Games Showcase, but he swears he wasn't teasing anything.

"Wearing the shirt wasn’t as much about a tease forward as it was just about the nostalgia," Spencer said during an interview with Polygon. He then went on to say he wasn't "wasn’t trying to pre-announce" anything Hexen-related. "It was just recognizing the importance of some of the games in our portfolio," he added.

Spencer also went on to reference a time when he wore a Jumpman shirt on stage during E3. The CEO said he wanted his father to see him wearing the shirt on stage since they used to play the game together on the Commodore 64.

Despite this, Spencer has been known to tease upcoming games or projects by wearing t-shirts. Famously, Spencer wore a Battletoads t-shirt in 2015, teasing a new game in the series, which eventually came to fruition with the 2020 Xbox release. "I don't think I've ever worn a t-shirt that's been a complete head-fake. I wouldn't do that," he said in 2015.

So, while Spencer isn't totally ruling out a new entry in the Hexen series, it doesn't seem to be in the cards, at least, not in a public sense. Hexen: Beyond Heretic was originally published by id Software in 1995, and since Microsoft now owns ZeniMax Media (which is id Software's parent company), a new installment for Xbox isn't outside the realm of possibility.