E3 has been deceased long enough that we don't [[link]] even refer to June's flurry of videogame announcements as "the event formerly known as E3" anymore. Thanks to the march of time and the brand-building acumen of Geoff Keighley, it's just Summer Game Fest now, referring simultaneously to a live showcase, an in-person event for media referred to as "Play Days", and all of the many other .
In this article, I'm mostly talking about what we expect to see at the Summer Game Fest livestream, which airs Friday, June 6 at 2 pm Pacific on , but we'll of course be covering all of the weekend's showcases, which includes our own .
We'll also be on the ground in LA for Play Days, where we'll be previewing just-announced games, talking to developers, and producing videos in partnership with HP Omen, thanks to whom we've been able to bring along an ice cream truck—both to evoke the Omen Max 16's cooling capabilities and because ice cream is delicious.
New developers with unrevealed games
SGF has a lot of partners this year, but I'll start with just two, which stand out to me as unknown quantities: new developers whose games we haven't seen yet.
- Raw Power Games: According to , it's making "a vast medieval sandbox set in Europe" and aims to deliver "an immersive medieval battle experience." The as-yet-untitled game is coming to PC first, and there are some notable designers involved, including a former lead designer on Cyberpunk 2077. There's a twist, though: The studio is .
- Soft Rains: This is a headed by Joel Burgess, whose resume includes Bethesda Game Studios (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/4/76), Ubisoft Toronto (Watch Dogs Legion), and Capybara Games (Grindstone, Below). It's making a singleplayer sci-fi action game.
Big studios and publishers
The following Summer Game Fest partners are notable to me either because we can easily guess what big game they're showing, or because there are so many things they could show that we might get a surprise from them.
- 505 Games: Publisher of Wu Chang: Fallen Feathers, which we.
- 2K Games: Mafia: The Old Country seems likely, and Borderlands 4 maybe.
- Bandai Namco: Its upcoming games include The Blood of the Dawnwalker, Little Nightmares 3, and Shadow Labyrinth.
- Capcom: Probably not Resident Evil 9 but you're welcome to cross your fingers.
- CD Projekt: Feels early for , but it did just .
- Embark: Maker of The Finals and the upcoming .
- IO Interactive: at Sony's State of Play.
- Square Enix: Presumably not just involved to promote the .
- Techland: , so expect to see that.
- Xbox: Microsoft has its own showcase on Sunday, but it might tease some games that it'll show in more detail there. There's tons it could be ready to show. To name a few: The Outer Worlds 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Fable, State of Decay 3, Gears of War: E-Day, Clockwork Revolution.
- PlayStation: Aside from Death Stranding 2, Sony could show any of , though it's already showed off lots at State of Play.
- Epic Games: [[link]] Since Tim Sweeney's shop has a publishing wing these days, it could bring any number of things along, not just Fortnite news.
- Pearl Abyss: The maker of MMO Black Desert Online called Crimson Desert on the way.
- Sega: Probably talkin' Switch 2, but could have surprise for us.
- Steam: Gabe's kingdom and puts on a related sale event. Probably won't have any big announcement, but there could be something about SteamOS or the Steam Deck. Valve is also an all-in-one VR headset.
Even more big and small SGF partners
And finally, here are the rest of this year's Summer Game Fest partners and what they're known for or are likely to show up with. It's a long list:
- 1047 Games: The studio behind .
- Amazon Games: Aside from its MMOs, it's got coming. No surprises rumored that I know of, but you never know.
- Annapurna Interactive: Lots of could show up.
- Atari: The old-timer is again.
- Bellring Games: Making Mistfall Hunter, an
- Blumhouse Games: A
- Coffee Stain: Was recently part of some .
- Devolver Digital: Doing its own event focused on a game called Ball X Pit.
- Dotemu: Known for reviving classic series, but just announced
- Dreamhaven: Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's .
- Enhance: Known for cool.
- Focus Entertainment: Just published RoadCraft.
- Frontier: Maker of Planet Coaster 2 and Elite Dangerous.
- Funcom: About to launch .
- iam8bit Presents: of collector's editions and other merch.
- Kakao Games: Publisher behind MMOs Chrono Odyssey and ArchAge Chronicles.
- Kinetic Games: Creator of .
- Kuro Games: The company behind .
- Level Infinite: Studio making upcoming extraction shooter .
- Magic the Gathering: There's a new Final Fantasy set.
- Megabit: with several upcoming games.
- Meta Quest: VR headsets and games.
- Mundfish: Atomic Heart developer.
- NCSoft: Publisher of Guild Wars 2 and a number of other MMOs.
- Nekki: Promises "gun fu" in the upcoming , which looks cool.
- Neowiz: Could be showing off the .
- Netmarble: Released a Game of Thrones game recently.
- Nexon: Vindictus: Defying Fate is upcoming games.
- Niantic: The Pokémon Go studio.
- Nintendo Switch 2: The new Switch launches June 5.
- Nuverse: Marvel Snap publisher.
- Playstack: Publisher of , including Balatro.
- PlaySide: Its next game is Mouse: PI for Hire, an .
- PM Studios: Has games.
- Razer: Maker of the mouse I'm using.
- Supermassive Games: This'll be Directive 8020, which is .
- Xsolla: This is , so probably nothing exciting for us.
- Yacht Club Games: The Shovel Knight dev, whose Mina The Hollower.
That's a hell of a lot of potential announcements and trailers, and doesn't include however many developers will be showing their games at SGF without sponsoring the event. For instance, we know to expect an "intense body horror" game called ILL (see ).
We also know that beta access to Soulframe, the new game from the Warframe developer, will be during the stream, so expect to hear about that. (Fun fact: It's not called Soulframe in China because there's already.)
And finally, it wouldn't be a Summer Game Fest without Hideo Kojima. He'll be at the show, if there were any doubt. There's also a on Sunday, which is hosted by Keighley. The bond grows even stronger.