It’s been five years since the last official E3, and Xbox now has the honor of holding what many are calling an “E3-caliber showcase” this past weekend. It’s been a steady stream of game trailers and big announcements that actually look like they could rival Nintendo’s incomparable Directs, and very likely put PlayStation in the awkward position of struggling with why its own State of Plays hasn’t taken off really the same way.
The head-to-head battle between gaming’s biggest companies is just one of the feelings that disappeared when E3 was canceled all those years ago, but it’s one that’s starting to make a comeback, thankfully.
In its heyday, E3 was on gaming event, not just of the summer, but of the year. It was a week where all the biggest game companies showed off new trailers, shared big announcements, and invited the press to preview upcoming games so they could then share their impressions with readers.
Cut to 2024 and E3 is gone. But this past weekend saw a semi-centralized orbit of events that included Summer Game Fest, Xbox Games Showcase, Ubisoft Forward and IGN Live. It was preceded by the PlayStation Showcase, and at some point later this month there will be a Nintendo Direct. But for the most part, it was a weekend where some of the biggest gaming companies showed off new trailers, shared big announcements, and invited the press to preview the upcoming games, which we’re now writing up our impressions to share with you all .
E3 is certainly dead, but it looks like the industry is finally settling on its successor.
Sure, Summer Game Fest and other events like it have been around for a while, but in the last few years people are still figuring things out. E3 was officially canceled for good in 2023, but the last actual E3 event was in June 2019. When E3 2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the alternate summer lineup that appeared in its place was a big old mess.
Between May and August – a four-month period rather than the flurry of announcements we previously saw over several weeks – companies like Microsoft, EA, PlayStation and Ubisoft held various digital showcases. It turned out that four months of shotgun-style revelations, announced seemingly at random with varying levels of quality, left many like me feeling ragged rather than irritated. It was downright exhausting, unfocused, and I never again want to make spreadsheets to keep track of which live show was happening when.
Looking back, I wonder if it was even worth trying to recreate the feeling of E3 during that time. There was, frankly, a global pandemic tearing the world apart, which made focusing on games a bit difficult. Additionally, COVID-19 had a very real impact on the gaming industry at the time, delaying many of these games for years, which in turn made these showcases lackluster as a result.
There’s been a real ‘lost in the desert’ feeling about what to do in the summer over the past few years, which thankfully I haven’t felt in 2024. The focused two-week window, hands-on demo opportunities and publisher shows that are most relevant for their home side, brought the familiar energy back into the summer games window.
That doesn’t mean it’s exactly the same as it was. It looks like a new format has officially taken hold. It takes some fine-tuning, but it looks like the Nintendo Direct style has won out, with the developers understanding that ultimately trailers and announcements are king. Xbox seems to have understood the task best, and over the past few shows they’ve been echoing Nintendo’s playbook with their Xbox Games Showcase.
This weekend’s would be right at home if it aired from the venue formerly known as the Microsoft Theater, and just like past E3s, the media was invited right after to get some hands-on time with some of the announced games ( in this case, Age of Mythology: Retold).
There’s also the question of how shows like this can fight the odds. It’s not forgotten that this is a year of historic layoffs and studio closings, and as far as I can tell, we have one mention of them all weekend. It may be small consolation, but coming together at these events to commiserate over the hits the business has taken in recent years is also a throwback element of lost game shows.
It wasn’t that long ago that the memory of E3 was just some nostalgic, half-remembered dream fueled by a game trailer. Due to the time-consuming nature of game development, this was an important point for both gamers and journalists to check on the state of the industry. What trends dominated the year, which publisher was building an exciting lineup of games? Which publisher had the best vision for its future?
It was hard to focus on these things amid a global pandemic, and trying to recapture that feeling through weeks of digital shows that seemed endless but never fully realized certainly didn’t help. Fortunately, that no longer seems to be the case.
E3 was perfect. It was a dream destination for many gamers, an important work week for developers and the biggest calendar event of the year for the media. And it offered something for everyone. If you’re obsessed with trailers, there were a lot of them. If you’re a fan of blood sports, every E3 has been followed by endless weeks of debate about who “won.”
Looking around now, I see that a lot of those familiar beats are returning, and there seems to be an understanding in the industry that while E3 may never return, it’s possible that we can at least come together for a week in June to put on a show that is great for fans looking forward to what’s next for their favorite entertainment.
Matt TM Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach it @lawoftd.
