While this year may not have the most traditional summer of E3 and game announcements, there’s still plenty of events scheduled with reveals for everything new coming this year. Everything from Summer Game Fest to the Big Three holding their own respective presentations, all of the developers and publishers are all planning alternatives to the usual programming and trade shows each year.
Plenty of presentations have already announced some groundbreaking news,such as Summer Games Fest with Unreal Engine 5. Microsoft released its first presentation of Inside Xbox, full of third-party game reveals. There’s still plenty more presentation planned direct from publishers as well as media outlets for this summer, so here’s every presentation planned for this summer.
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Xbox 20/20 - July
Among the big three, Xbox has been the first to kick off its summer of big game reveals. Back in the beginning of May, the company held its Inside Xbox May presentation all about third-party titles andgameplay, or the lack thereof according to backlash. While this presentation only pertained to third-party titles, Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty confirmed that fans would learn aboutHalo Infiniteand other first-party titles during another Xbox Series X presentation in July. Along with all first-party titles, Xbox would also reveal more information about the Xbox Series X console’s features and services. It’s been a long time coming forHalo Infinite, and a lot is riding on Xbox’s potential comeback for this generation against Sony.
Sony State of Play - “Soon”
In classic Sony fashion, the company is remaining as tight lipped and ambiguous as possible as summer approaches. Despite earlier in the year when Sony held its “Road to PS5” presentation, the PlayStation 5 has still not been officially shown. Sony is almost certainly planning a reveal event for next month, but the company has yet to give a concrete date for the reveal event. ThoughSony did manage to confirm that a reveal event would be coming soon. How soon remains to be seen, but the company is promising “a compelling lineup of titles” to be shown during the presentation. Sony has been practically basking in the mystery and hype it has generated in the last few months, and it may pay off for PlayStation in next month’s unveiling.
Nintendo Direct - Reportedly Postponed
Like every year, Nintendo was also planning its big trailer-stuffed Direct for this June. Typically around E3 time, the company prepares one if its signature Nintendo Directs in lieu of a traditional press conference to announce first and third-party games coming to the Switch. Although this year, Nintendo will be delayed due to complications with Covid-19 according to several reports. With Japan only recently lifting restrictions on its state of emergency, the industry slowdown has undoubtedly affected the pre-production of the June direct. Nintendo has not yet provided an exact date, as its also been rumored that Nintendo mayeschew a Direct entirely for 2020 in favor of separate game reveals.
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Summer Game Fest - May-August
Outside of the big three, another big show prepped for this summer is being produced by Geoff Keighley, called Summer Game Fest. Keighley has typically hosted the E3 Coliseum presentation in the past, but with E3’s significant changes and eventual cancellation, Keighley decided to produce his own show. Scheduled across four months, May to August, Keighley has planned several reveal streams dedicated to new games and platforms.
Summer Game Fest has partnered with several publishers from 2K to Ubisoft, even companies that have personal presentations planned as well. That being said,Summer Game Fest has also proven that the festival has several exclusive revealsplanned. Just last week, Summer Games Fest exclusively announced bothTony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Remasteredand the Unreal Engine 5 development tool. Setting the standard for the coming months, Summer Games Fest is looking to share even more premieres soon.
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Various Developer/Publisher Press Conferences, More
Outside of the aforementioned conglomerate-style events, many of the major publishers are still holding separate digital presentations as well. Some of them have partnered with these events, despite the shows being their own productions. Ubisoft’s digital presentation, Ubisoft Forward, is scheduled for July 12.Ubisoft has had several AAA games slated for release this fiscal year, which will likely be unveiled or shown off during their presentation. EA Play’s digital showcase is set for June 11, where players may learn more about the nextBattlefieldtitle and more.
GDC, typically held prior to E3, has also postponed to August 4 with a completely digital conference.GDC was originally scheduled for March of this year, but due to the pandemic, the event was subsequently cancelled as developers pulled out of the conference. Outside of the events mentioned here, several other publishers have planned appearances at these larger events, but no showcases of their own.
Similar to Summer Game Fest, there is also theSummer of Gaming eventnext month, which will also be the host of such reveals as well. Summer of Gaming is partnering with a similar amount of publishers from Summer Game Fest, along with exclusive interviews and information direct from developers. In that same vein, there is another event for the summer called Play For All. Also taking place in June, Play For All will partner with several publishers to host and showcase exclusive game reveals across several weeks.
Despite E3’s cancellation leaving a giant hole in the summer of games, several companies were quick to fill in that gap with its own respective conferences and presentations. Even without a centralized location like previous years, there’ll still be plenty of news this summer about the new consoles, as well as new games coming this fall.
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