Summer Game Fest returns June 10th to unofficially kickoff E3

Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest returns next month, and it sounds like it’ll start with a bang. Keighley is promising “a memorable month of announcements and updates,” beginning with a world premiere showcase featuring more than a dozen game world premieres and announcements, as well as a preview of what to expect from affiliated publishers’ own livestreams in the following weeks.

More than 30 publishers are taking part in Summer Game Fest this year, including some big names that haven’t been announced for E3. Among them are PlayStation, Blizzard Entertainment, Devolver Digital and Electronic Arts (which is also running its own EA Play Live event in July). Also taking part in Summer Game Fest are Epic Games, 2K, Amazon Games, Capcom, Sega, Warner Bros. Games, Ubisoft and Xbox.

Summer Game Fest’s opening event takes place just two days before the start of E3, on June 10th at 2PM ET. Along with all of the game reveals, Kick Off Live! will feature a performance from Weezer and a Day of the Devs indie showcase. Summer Game Fest’s own programming will stream on Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms, but the publisher-run streams might not be as broadly available.

Last year, Summer Game Fest stretched out over four months. That muted some of the fan excitement that comes with the relentless pace of an E3, which didn’t take place in 2020 amid the pandemic. Even though it’ll be far more condensed this time around, some publishers will still host their own events and hog the limelight for themselves.

“You’re not in a city where you have to have a hotel room for extra nights to see these events,” Keighley told GamesIndustry.biz. “So things naturally spread out a little bit. But I agree with the fans who want to have this point in time. We want to have that battle between the different games, we want that excitement. That was the idea for this year. Let’s have a big kick-off moment, but also respect and support publishers that want to do their own events.”

Meanwhile, E3 runs from June 12th-15th, with the likes of Nintendo, Xbox and Square Enix participating. You can expect at least some crossover between that event and Summer Game Fest. An Ubisoft Forward stream is scheduled for the first day of E3. It’ll be part of Summer Game Fest as well, according to Keighley.