With E3 2022 canceled, there is a gap in the middle of the video game marketing season. Many eyes are set on Summer Game Fest to be the longest and widest presser on the horizon. But host Geoff Keighley recently said it was appropriate to temper expectations ahead of the show, saying it would not live up to the “world premieres” for which its events have been announced.
Now in its third year, Summer Game Fest is both a unique event (a showcase that includes trailers from a wide range of video game publishers) and a promotional tool (a logo that sticks to every part of marketing). from Memorial Day to Labor Day). ). Essentially, it’s a way for Keighley to consolidate his life as the god of gaming hype. But for all intents and purposes, at least here, “Summer Game Fest” refers to the showcase.
Where to look
Summer Game Fest begins on Thursday, June 9 at 2:00 p.m. ET. And if we can get a “RIP” for me and my classmates, it would be great: a calendar list suggests it will last three hours. (Last year’s event lasted three and a half years, but also included the hour-long indie presentation “Day of the Devs.” You can play the Summer Game Fest on YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter. Or, if you really want to see Kaiju Geoff, it will be shown in IMAX cinemas in a few dozen cities across the country.
What to expect
During a Twitter Spaces held over the weekend, according to a VGC transcript, Keighley went into expectations management mode, saying the show will focus primarily on games that have already been revealed. “We’re doing good things for you, but we definitely manage your expectations when it comes to the megaton shocks you expect,” he said. “We have a lot of good things to show you, but the buyer is wary of some of the crazy rumors I’m seeing around here in terms of things that people expect to be announced.”
Wool planet. (Screenshot: Thunder)
A promotional reel, set up for a film remix of Halsey’s “Young God,” showed a glimpse of a plethora of games, both upcoming and recently released, that will be shown in a certain way. And a good handful of publishers have already announced which of their titles will appear. Among other games, you can expect to see:
- Forspoken, the Square Enix action RPG is slated for PS5 and PC in October.
- Sonic Frontiers, which claims to be Sonic through Breath of the Wild, but which really looks like a demonstration of Unreal technology.
- Forbidden Horizon West. The open world game has been available on PlayStation for months and has seen several major updates, so maybe this heralds news of an expansion?
- The Wool Planet, inspired by Limbo, will have a revelation of the game.
- The Marvel’s Midnight Suns tactics game, which was originally scheduled for release in the spring of 2022, but has since been pushed into the fall. It currently has no release date.
- Developer Infinity Ward will show the first level of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign.
- More gameplay from The Callisto Protocol, which had a brief stint during Sony’s non-game state event at E3.
- The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, an adventure game scheduled for September 1, exactly one day before the release of the Amazon LotR program.
- Knights of Gotham. Last month, developer WB Games released a 13-minute gameplay video along with an announcement that it had removed previous-generation versions.
- The blasting reel showed a clip of a split second from Starfield, though I imagine Microsoft will save the flesh of the Bethesda role-playing game for the main Xbox event on Sunday.
- Also, does it look like there will be a game called Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? I have no idea what it’s all about, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the game involves lifting weights at dawn, co-producing about half of Hollywood’s box office production, and taking advantage of the broad political division of the United States for a possible candidacy for president someday.
What to expect (but not hold your breath).
Yes, everyone in the world wants news about God of War Ragnarök, the sequel to the restart of the Santa Monica Studio action series in 2018. On the one hand, Sony already had its big PlayStation event of the season (focused in third-party games, but still). On the other hand, in recent years, Sony has focused on revealing information about its own production through dedicated live transfers with shorter lead times. Sure it might show up, but don’t get too hopeful.
Curiously, Starfield, Bethesda’s first role-playing game in 10,000 years, is among the mockery of the Summer Game Fest. Although scheduled for a release date of November 11, 2022, Bethesda recently delayed Starfield until the first part of 2023. One would think that Microsoft would keep all its own lockers for its big press, scheduled for Sunday afternoon. . But I guess with over two dozen first-party studios under its umbrella, Xbox presumably has a lot of other things, possibly even some unannounced games, to show off, so it could let most of its known amount go at Summer Game Fest with little to lose.
EA is one of the publishers associated with Summer Game Fest, so some of the games in its program, such as Skate 4, could appear. In particular, some mass publishers that usually have a large projection during the E3 season, including Nintendo and Ubisoft, are not on the list of partners. An Ubisoft representative told Axios he would avoid the Summer Game Fest in favor of something “later this year.” Nintendo, meanwhile, has been quiet on the radio.