Both E3 and not-E3 aim to come back in full force this year, as Geoff Keighley has confirmed the return of the Summer Game Fest for 2021 – just one day after reports began to circulate about some controversial potential plans for E3 proper. Summer Game Fest is set to kick off this June.
“Summer Game Fest is returning this June,” Keighley says on Twitter. “A spectacular, concentrated global showcase of the future of video games – where everyone comes to play.” That ‘concentrated’ descriptor is a bit of cheeky acknowledgement of criticism that last year’s Summer Game Fest was too spread out to match that E3-style excitement – previous communication on this year’s event has suggested it will be “less than one month” long.
The official SGF site is live right now, but for the moment the only official detail on the event is that Day of the Devs will return with “new videogame content, including world exclusive news and gameplay, plus videogame musical performances”, according to a press release.
Yesterday, VGC published a report suggesting that E3 would be a digital-only event this year, and that organisers were considering both streaming game demos using Nvidia cloud technology and charging for a paid access pass to some elements of the event. The E3 Twitter account responded with the confirmation that “E3’s 2021 digital show is a free event for all attendees”.
.@SummerGameFest is returning this June!
A spectacular, concentrated global showcase of the future of video games — where everyone comes to play.
Sign up at https://t.co/Hp7WuLrjXk for event updates + text alerts. pic.twitter.com/kvCdSb6eP4
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) April 2, 2021
(Don’t worry, it looks like Summer Game Fest is “free to play” too.)
At least we can remain certain that there are upcoming PC games and a pile of publishers eager to inform us about them.