Summer Game Fest is a Worthy Summer Kickoff Event
Geoff Keighley won’t be working on E3 this year. Instead, he’s working on his own events, like Thursday’s Summer Game Fest. Imagine a video game conference that doesn’t focus on one particular publisher or platform. Even better, imagine The Game Awards without the awards.
That is Summer Game Fest. If this sounds exciting, you’re right about 2021’s event.
The Summer Game Fest Respected Our Time
Geoff Keighley fully understands why gamers tune into events like E3: video games. Going by IGN’s list of announcements, there were 28 different announcements today. These ranged from major reveals to release dates to extended editions. When there was a non-announcement portion, it still centered around video games.
Not every conference does that well. Some conferences take time to boast about their statistics and their corporate message. No matter how impressive that might seem, it eats time better spent showing off future projects. So to have a show primarily focus on video games shows who Geoff’s target audience is.
These Announcements Were Huge
Let’s not beat around the bush: the Summer Game Fest came out swinging. We knew beforehand that Gearbox would reveal a new project, but we didn’t know the meat of it. That meat was a spin-off of Borderlands, expanding on arguably the series’ highest praised DLC, Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands seems to follow the looter-shooter gameplay from its parent series but also boasts an incredible cast of Andy Samberg, Wanda Sykes, Ashly Burch (duh), and Will Arnett.
Soon after, Hideo Kojima appeared to announce the Director’s Cut of Death Stranding. A game that already had tens of hours of gameplay is now getting an extended look. True, we did not get a full look at this version, but the fact Death Stranding even needed a Director’s Cut speaks for itself.
There were many other awesome announcements throughout the show, but there’s one everyone is talking about. Yes, let’s talk about the Elden Ring trailer.
The Summer Game Fest’s grand finale was everything fans could have asked for. A full three minutes of gameplay showcasing rideable mounts, multiplayer, FromSoftware’s classic gameplay style, and most importantly, a release date. The January launch date and Jason Schreier’s threat to delay Elden Ring do not matter. What matters is that Elden Ring fans finally got something two years after the game was officially announced.
GG Geoff, GG
E3 will be unusual this year. Since it was flat out cancelled last year, we never got virtual press conferences. Before then there were and still are lingering doubts about the expo’s longevity. However, no matter what this year’s unusual E3 does look like, this time of year will still thrive as a major game reveal time thanks to events like the Summer Game Fest.
