Sony won’t wait till E3 begins to start revealing upcoming games

By Steven Petite June 4, 2018

PlayStation 4 Pro review — Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Leading up to next week’s E3 event, Sony will host a series of streams, each of which will focus on a different upcoming game. From Wednesday, June 6, till Sunday, June 10, Sony wants you to be thinking about its games in the days before its E3 press conference on June 11.

Each of the mini events will stream on PlayStation, Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook. Each day’s stream kicks off at 8 a.m. PT. Here’s the schedule and what to expect:

June 6

Starting things off, Sony will unveil a new PlayStation 4 game with PlayStation VR support.

June 7

During this stream, Sony will announce a launch date for one of its upcoming first-party titles. While we cannot be 100 percent sure which game it will be, the most likely candidate is SIE Bend Studio’s Days Gone. The open-world zombie game was recently delayed to 2019 and is not one of Sony’s four core games slated for the press conference. As Days Gone is the only Sony first-party title that seems somewhat close to launch, it’s a better candidate than The Last of Us Part II or Ghost of Tsushima. Sure, it’s possible that The Last of Us Part II could get a launch date at E3, but Sony would certainly wait till the big show for that.

June 8

Sony will announce a new PS4 game.

June 9

Sony will announce a new PSVR game.

June 10

This one will be interesting, as Sony described it as “an eagerly anticipated game comes to PSVR.”

This is the first year Sony will try these pre-E3 streams. It makes sense, though, as the studio has already pledged to devote its conference time to four of its upcoming titles: Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, and Death Stranding. Typically, Sony’s shows contain more meat than that. The streams allow for Sony to spend its entire showcase on the most anticipated games while still highlighting other projects in the preceding days.

If you can’t watch the streams, don’t worry, we’ll have all the latest updates as they come out.

Sony’s E3 press conference airs at 6 p.m. PT on Monday, June 11.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

Gaming

E3 isn’t dead just yet as ESA plans physical show for 2023

Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest, as well as other digital gaming showcase livestreams coming this summer, have proven that the gaming industry doesn't need E3, which was canceled this year for the second time in two years to reduce health risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is telling everyone not to count it out just yet. Gaming's governing body has announced that E3 will be returning in 2023.

ESA President and CEO Stan Pierre-Louis said in an interview with The Washington Post that E3 2023 will combine both in-person and digital elements. He attributed the success of last year's virtual E3 to the expanse of its reach to fans and journalists around the world who couldn't afford to fly to Los Angeles for the convention or couldn't attend it for other reasons. He added that people still want to connect and network with each other in person.

Gaming

With E3 2022 canceled, these are the summer gaming events to watch

We learned this week that 2022 will be the second year since 1995 to not have any kind of E3 expo. While the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) says E3's physical and digital cancelation this year enables it to "devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer," it also raises questions regarding how game announcements will happen this summer. Companies like Microsoft and Nintendo often tie big reveals to E3, so what is the industry's plan now that E3 2022 is officially canceled?
So far, we only know of a couple of events that will take place, though there's still time for a lot more to be announced. For those wondering how E3 2022's cancelation will impact summer 2022's game reveal landscape, we've broken down everything that is and isn't happening -- and that might happen -- in the coming months.
What's not happening
E3's absence leaves a crater in the usual gaming hype cycle. Typically, the yearly event took place for a week in Los Angeles and served as a spot where game publishers could announce and advertise their upcoming slates of titles and game-related products. In 2020, the ESA canceled the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it returned digitally in 2021 with mixed results.

On March 31, the event organizers at the ESA confirmed that there would be no digital or physical E3 event this year. That was quite surprising as more and more in-person events are returning, and the ESA even demonstrated that it could hold the event digitally before. The event may return in 2023, but this year the E3 event that typically consolidates many gaming announcements to one week in June won't play out like normal.
Outside of E3, we also know that EA won't hold its yearly EA Play Live event this summer. Typically, the publisher has its own events outside of E3, but chose not to this year because "this year things aren't lining up to show you everything on one date." That means that if we get new information on titles like the Dead Space remake or the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it won't be at an E3-adjacent event.
What is happening
There are still some major gaming events that will take place this summer. This June, the biggest one is Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. The creator of The Game Awards plans to hold a Summer Game Fest Kickoff Livestream full of new trailers and announcements. Last year's event featured the release date of Elden Ring, so there are certainly high expectations surrounding the showcase, especially as E3 won't be drawing away any reveals. An indie-focused Day of the Devs presentation and other Summer Game Fest-branded events are also expected to take place this June. Keighley tweeted that Summer Game Fest festivities "will be less than one month this year."
IGN confirmed that its Summer of Gaming event would also take place in June and feature exclusive trailers, gameplay, and interviews. Bethesda has also teased that it will show Starfield this summer, and we're supposed to get another look at Final Fantasy XVI soon.
As for in-person events, a couple of them are happening later in the summer. Gamescom, a European gaming expo equivalent to E3, will happen in person in Cologne, Germany. In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show will be the final big in-person summer event between September 15 and 18. While E3 might not be happening, it's clear that some digital showcases will happen this summer and that events outside of America are still on track to take place in person.

Gaming

E3 2022 won’t happen in-person (and Summer Game Fest has already clapped back)

For the third year in a row, E3 2022 will not happen as an in-person event. The Entertainment Software Association, which organizes the expo, has confirmed that the physical show has been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the virus' new Omicron variant. In fact, the ESA didn't technically confirm that the show will happen in 2022 at all.

The news was broken by VentureBeat, which released a statement from the ESA regarding the yearly video game press conference. “Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022,” the ESA tells VentureBeat, “We are nonetheless excited about the future of E3 and look forward to announcing more details soon.”