After the success of the inaugural event in 2020, Summer Games Fest - in partnership with Amazon Prime Gaming - is back with another online fiesta featuring many publishers and developers showcasing their latest and upcoming games. Geoff Keighley will be kickstarting the festival with the Kick-off Live! show beginning Thursday 10 June.

At present, there are four days scheduled for the event:

  • Kick-off Live! - 10 June (11 PT / 14 ET / 19 BST / 20 CET)
  • Ubisoft Forward - 12 June (12 PT / 15 ET / 20 BST / 21 CET)
  • Steam Next Fest - 16 June (10 PT / 13 ET / 18 BST / 19 CET)
  • EA Play Live - 22 July (TBA PT / TBA ET / TBA BST / TBA CET)

 

The event schedule of Summer Games Fest 2021

Unlike last year - where Summer Games Fest was spread out and had separate events - we can expect to have 20 to 30 games shown this year at the Kick-off Live! event. Expect world premieres of upcoming games and interviews from Geoff Keighley with various developers. The Kick-off Live event will also have more than a dozen of world premieres, according to Keighley, so get ready to feast your eyes. Lest not forget, there will also be a musical performance from rock band Weezer.

As for Ubisoft, their Ubisoft Forward presentation (which will be part of both Summer Games Fest and E3) will offer us a look into their next upcoming titles, be it big or small. Some titles that you might see make an appearance are Riders Republic, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, Far Cry 6, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Quarantine, and more.

When the 16th of June comes around, the Steam Next Fest event will be next in line, giving PC gamers a selection of hundreds of demos that can be played for six days. Whether this includes currently released titles or newly announced titles is currently unknown, but for a six-day event, there will be something for everyone to try out and play.

The last show of the festival will be EA Play Live, which is the only event that currently has no exact time slot set. As per usual, you can expect to see the yearly updated sports titles including FIFA and Madden NFL. With recent rumours heating up, Battlefield's new iteration is also bound to be shown this year. For the race fanatics among us, there is a chance they will some footage of the upcoming Formula 1 game from Codemasters that they might share as well, as they purchased the racing publisher giant earlier this year.

Other Summer Games Fest participants

Additional live-streamed events from other publishers will be included within Summer Game Fest; however, the names of these participating companies have not been shared yet. The Ubisoft Forward is one separate event that will be supported, as it will be part of both E3 and Summer Games Fest.

But what about Nintendo, you ask? Well, Geoff Keighley has mentioned to GameSpot that he would welcome Nintendo and has given them an invitation to participate. However, so far, there is no confirmation whether they will partake in the event or not.

Day of the Devs

In 2020, Indie titles were given a much-needed light instead of drowning in a sea of big-budgeted games. This year’s Summer Games Fest will have a “Day of the Devs” showcasing many independent games. GameSpot mentioned that Tim Schafer (Double Fine) said in a press release article:

The Day of the Devs team handpicked the best of the games and performances from hundreds of submissions from all around the world. What they've put together is, for the ninth year in a row, an incredibly inspiring celebration of gaming's creative spirit.

The “Day of the Devs” is produced by Tim Schafer and iam8bit and will feature as part of the Kickoff Live! Event on 10 June.

Summer Game Fest partners

Much like last year, the gaming industry unites once again for the second edition of the Summer Game Fest. Plenty of these partners are returning after last year such as Tencent Games (League of Legends: Wild Rift and Valorant), PlayStation (Horizon: Forbidden West and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart), Microsoft and Bethesda (Halo: Infinite and Deathloop), and many more. Here is the full list of partners:

2K, Activision, Amazon Games, Annapurna Interactive, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Blizzard Entertainment, Capcom, Devolver Digital, Dotemu, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Finji, Frontier, Gearbox Publishing, Hi-Rez Studios, Inner Sloth, Koch Media, Mediatonic, MiHoYo, PlayStation (Sony), Psyonix, Raw Fury, Riot Games, Saber Interactive, SEGA, Square Enix, Tencent Games, Tribeca Festival, Ubisoft, Valve (Steam), Warner Bros. Games, Wizards of the Coast, Xbox (Microsoft).

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Our expectations

In an interview with Video Game Chronicle, Geoff Keighley stated that last year’s Summer Games Fest “was spread out and there were one-off events on singular games”, and thanks to fan feedback after last year's show, it has now changed so that “you’ll have 20 or 30 games together in this one big show.”

What can we expect from those 20 to 30 games? No titles have been mentioned at this point in time by Keighley, but here are some upcoming titles that might be shown (take this with a grain of salt):

 

Other gaming events

Two days after the start of Summer Games Fest 2021, E3 2021 will start on the 12th of June 2021 until 15 June. Gamescom will be held between 25 August and 27 August 2021. Just like last year, Gamescom will be a fully online event.

If that wasn’t enough, the Guerilla Collective is commencing even before everything else kicks off on 5 June 2021 and lasts until the 12th. Like last year’s inaugural event, 2021 will showcase more Indie titles from developers and publishers alike.