The time around , formerly known as month, is a very exciting🦹 time for gamers. Aside from , this is the biggest week all year where we know we’ll have new game reveals, updates on games we can’t wait to play, and loads more gamer goodness. On a typical year, we’d be eating pretty good.
A ‘big’ Summer Game Fest, for host and the majority of mainstream players, is a showcase packed full of new instalments to beloved franchises, featuring fewer new IPs from unfamiliar studios. To truly be the new E3, this is what it needs. These will be your games that are nearly guaranteed to 𒆙have blockbuster-level sales even if they’re just mediocre, your and your and your .
This year’s SGF however, as Keigh♒ley said in a Q&A about the showcase, is a “lighter” year, but not a quiet one. There will still be announcements, but mostly about games we already know are in progress, instead of projects we haven’t heard of yet.
Optimistically, Studios Are Just Learning From Their Mistakes
The big problem with the game industry hype cycle is that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:studios announce games far too early. So often, we’ll get a cinematic teaser for a game that’s barely entered full-blown production just so players can get excited about it, an♊d then it’ll get delayed three times, if it’s given a release window at all. If we’re being extremely optimistic, perhaps naively so, we might interpret this lack of new announcements as studios simply not throwing their cards on the table prematurely, with the trailers acting more as recruitment ads than teases for the players.
Wonder Woman and Perfect Dark were both ‘revealed’ with short CG trailers and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:have been silent for years since, both 16𒁃8澳洲幸运5开奖网:facing “troubled” developments.
We see this all the time, especially when those games are part of popular franchises. , which everybody is hoping will finally be released this year, was first announced in late 2018 at The Game Awards, before it even had an official name. The studio said at the time that the game would be released no earlier than 2021, but because development had slowed during the pandemic, we’re 🐠only seeing more informatio𝐆n about the game now, nearly six🥀 years after the initial announcement. The game only reached alpha in late 2022, and it still isn’t out.
We can chalk part of this delay up to the pandemic, but still expected the game to be finished three years after the initial teaser. It’s bizarre that it’s totally normal꧑ for studios to start drumming up hype for a game that is years away from even having a playable build.
We saw the same thing with , which was originally announced in 2020 before a writer or narrative designer had even been attached. Perhaps, considering what happened with after it was hyped up incessantly, delayed multiple times, then released to a middling recept𝔉ion, studios are starting๊ to think better of this practice.
Less Optimistically, It’s Because Of Layoffs
It’s not much of a stretch that perhaps we aren’t seeing new games because everybody who wants to make games keeps losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Most recently, we’ve seen successful, beloved studios owned by be closed because there isn’t enough money to go around, and the corporation would rather focus on new games that are destined to bring in safe, risk-free profit instead of fostering creativity in▨ ꦍthe medium.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: The End O💦f The Anticipated Game Era
Do the most anticipated games ever live up to the h🀅ype?
When even studios who have proven themselves capable of making critically-lauded games across genres can get unceremoniously closed, how is an up and coming studio meant to do the same? How is anybody meant to pitch a new IP successfully? Of course there aren’t as many triple-As or double-As, since so many s🍰tudios apart from the ones too big to fail are constantly at risk of, or already have been, closed.
Shareholders aren’t willing to invest in anything risky right now, and haven’t been for a while. Everybody (but the players, of course) wants more live-service games because of the promise of consistent monetisation. Most studios don’t want to do ꦰthat, because that’s not their realm of expertise and they don’t want to replicate what happened with BioWare’s . The result? Less big games for Keighley to show off.
The Silver Lining Is That Indies Are Here To Fill The Gap
But the indie scene, again🍨st all odds, is still thriving. While triple-A development is constricted to a trickle because of escalating costs and development time, it feels like every month, at least three or four excellent and innovative indies are released. This is likely because indies take much less money to create and are often funded independently by players keen to see interesting concepts brought to fruition.
Without as many triple-As to get stuck into – and thank god, because I’m sick of big games that don’t take risks – indies have more space to thrive and find players. Keighley might still fill SGF with updates on triple-A games that aren’t new, but I’m hoping that this means more attention will be paid to games with smaller scopes and budgets, both in the showcase and by players more ge🀅nerally. We may be in a big game shortage, but there are indies to plug the void i🌄n your soul aching for something to play.
The showcase will still be tamer than usual, and that’s fine – there might still be an upside. Then again, Keighley might just get Hideo Kojima on stage 🅺for half the show to kill time, so I can’t say for sure it’ll all turn out fine.
- Dates
- ♔ June 6, 2025 🎃
- Location
- ♚ YouTube Theater, Los Angeles 🦹
Hos🎃ted by Geoff Keighley, Summer Game Fest is an annual event dedicated to showcasing upcoming games, initially created as an online alternative to cancelled events during the p𝐆andemic.
