Ubisoft’s digital E3-style showcase will stream on July 12

By Chris Morris May 11, 2020

E3 might be canceled, but Ubisoft’s still planning a showcase for its upcoming games.

The publisher announced plans Monday for Ubisoft Forward, a digital conference that would reveal new game announcements and news about existing titles.

The event will be streamed on July 12 at noon PT.

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The company sent a “Save the Date” alert to fans and media, but did not offer any details about what to expect, only saying it would offer “an E3-style showcase with plenty of exclusive game news, exciting reveals, and much more.”

Ubisoft’s E3 press conferences, in recent years, have become one of the highlights of the show, with surprise new franchises ranging from Watch Dogs to the long-awaited sequel for Beyond Good and Evil.

This year, fans are likely to learn more about the recently announced Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and delayed titles including Watch Dogs: Legion, Gods and Monsters, and Rainbow Six Quarantine.

Fans had hoped to learn more about Valhalla last week during Microsoft’s Inside Xbox presentation, but the touted reveal of “gameplay footage” showed very little and left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. Ubisoft will likely show a much more involved (and unedited) slice of the game at its own event.

E3 2020 was canceled in March due to coronavirus concerns.

Many publishers, such as Bethesda, are foregoing E3-like presentations altogether. Sony and Microsoft, though, have new consoles to launch this fall, so they’ll be showcasing those (and select titles) throughout the summer.

In addition, Game Awards host Geoff Keighley has organized a collection of digital presentations dubbed Summer Game Fest, which will reveal a number of upcoming titles from a variety of developers and publishers.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Chris Morris has covered consumer technology and the video game industry since 1996, offering analysis of news and trends and…

Gaming

Here’s what E3 2023 could look like without Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft

Playstation character wall at E3 2018

Let's start with the good news: E3 2023 will be held in its in-person format once again after three long years of digital events necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this time with ReedPop at the helm. The bad news is that Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo -- gaming's "Big 3" -- may not show up at the industry’s biggest convention this summer.

This is according to a report from IGN citing multiple sources, who claimed the companies won’t be a part of the show or make appearances on the floor at the Los Angeles Convention Center in any way. Their absence from this year’s E3, especially Nintendo’s, may come as a shock to the gaming community, but it's not such a surprise when looking at the past few iterations of E3. Even before the pandemic locked everyone down in 2020, Sony and Xbox had been hosting their own E3-style livestreams, so it was more likely they would do it again this year anyway. Nintendo, on the other hand, managed to show off its upcoming games via Nintendo Direct streams and at its booth, console kiosks and all.

Gaming

Summer Game Fest returns just before E3 2023 next June

The official artwork confirming Summer Game Fest's return on June 8, 2023.

Geoff Keighley has confirmed when Summer Game Fest will return in June 2023. It will begin with a live kickoff show on June 8, 2023, placing Keighley's game announcement alternative less than a week before E3's grand (intended) 2023 return.
Unlike past years, Summer Game Fest Live Kickoff 2023 will feature a live audience, like Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards. It will take place in the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park, with tickets going on sale in early 2023. It will still be livestreamed across platforms like YouTube and Twitch, though. It's currently unknown who's participating, how long Summer Game Fest will run afterward, or if it will feature a Summer Game Fest Play Days-like element for fans. Still, Keighley says all of that info will be revealed ahead of the event next year, teasing what people can expect.
"In keeping with tradition, we'll have tons of exciting announcements from the developers that are pushing the games industry forward, and will once again highlight other publisher digital events, demos, and more surprises to be announced in the coming months," Keighley says in a press release.
That June 8 start date, and the other Summer Game Fest events likely to follow, put Keighley's show just ahead of E3 2023. The ESA and ReedPop plan to bring E3 back between June 13 and June 16, 2023. With five days of lead time on E3, Summer Game Fest can coexist with the long-running gaming conference and encompass the plethora of publisher showcases that tend to precede E3.
Geoff Keighley made it clear that he wants Summer Game Fest and E3 to coexist for a while. "We've had extensive conversations with ReedPop about E3," he said in an interview with Epic Games Store. "I think it'll kind of fit together and flow kind of from what we're doing into what they're doing and stuff. E3, to me, is this kind of master brand that represents gaming news in June."
With the start date of Summer Game Fest confirmed, the coexistence of these two summer gaming events is a reality. Summer Game Fest returns on June 8, 2023.

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E3 2023 returns in June with separate business and consumer days

E3 2023 will return as an in-person event from June 13 to June 16, 2023, as announced by ReedPop today.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) already revealed that E3 will return in 2023, but now we know exactly when the event will take place, along with several other key details. E3 will once again take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center after a four-year hiatus, but will incorporate separate days for industry professionals and general consumers.