E3 isn't happening, so here's a rundown of when you can expect this summer's video game news
The beginning of summer is generally an interesting time for people who care about video games, since it’s traditionally when the big companies get together and show off their new stuff at the E3 expo (“Electronic Entertainment Expo expo”). This year was already going to be different, with Sony not planning to attend even though it has a new PlayStation coming out at some point, and then the coronavirus pandemic—and only the coronavirus pandemic, not growing concerns about whether or not E3 is even relevant anymore in a world where it’s easier and cheaper to just announce new titles in a YouTube stream—forced the ESA (which runs the event) to cancel it. We’ve already seen a bit of what Sony and Microsoft are doing in lieu of E3 events, with an Xbox Series X stream about an alien wall penis and the new PlayStation spaceship, and now Rock Paper Shotgun has assembled a handy list of the months of loosely organized video game events we can look forward to watching over this summer as we pretend to be paying attention on a Zoom call.
It was all supposed to start on June 4 with a PlayStation 5 event, but that has wisely been rescheduled already so that—as Sony puts it—”more important voices can be heard.” In other words, there are more important things happening in the world right now than news about PlayStation, specifically the massive protests against police violence and racial injustice happening in seemingly every city in the United States. Kotaku points out that a Madden announcement event for this week has also been postponed.
Other than that, IGN is organizing its own event that will start on June 5 with announcements of some sort, followed on June 6 with (among other things) shows about indie games and a PC-centric event. June 11 will have an event dedicated to Cyberpunk 2077, the game with Keanu Reeves, plus an EA Play show that should have new information on Apex Legends, EA’s many sports games (like Madden), and possibly something related to Battlefield or Star Wars. June 22 will feature a Summer Game Fest Developer Showcase, which we don’t know much about, June 23 will have the New Game+ Expo (primarily dedicated to Japanese studios like Sega and Atlus), and June 24 will be when we get new information about the Avengers video game were still a little unsure about.
Moving into July, Warframe players can try to explain Warframe to their friends during Tennocon 2020 (July 11), and then Ubisoft will talk about its new Assassin’s Creed and Tom Clancy games on July 12. Microsoft will have another announcement event at some point in July, during which it will finally show off the next Halo, but we don’t know when that’s happening exactly. August was supposed to the massive German video game show Gamescom, but that’s also being replaced by online events, so there will be even more new stuff happening by then as well.
If you’re wondering where Nintendo is in all of this, so is everyone else. It tends to do its own thing. You’ll wake up one day and find out that there’s a new Metroid, that’s just how it works.