Summer Game Fest 2021: everything you need to know Summer Game Fest

Summer Game Fest 2021 is right around the corner, and the festivities begin on June 10. This is the second year Summer Game Fest has taken place, with Geoff Keighley’s season of gaming making its debut in 2020. 

This year’s Summer Game Fest is set to be bigger than ever, and will feature a bunch of digital live stream showcases from a range of notable publishers and developers including PlayStation, Xbox, Ubisoft and Bandai Namco. The show gets underway on June 10, with the Summer Game Fest Kickoff Live! world premiere showcase, hosted by Keighley himself and with California rockers Weezer performing. 

So what can we expect from Summer Game Fest 2021? Read on to find out.

Make sure to check out our guide to E3 2021 too.

Summer Game Fest 2021 schedule

These are the current Summer Game Fest events that have been confirmed. We will update this page as more events are detailed.

Kickoff Live! – June 10

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Summer Game Fest kicks off on June 10 with a live world premiere showcase hosted by Geoff Keighley and with a performance by Weezer. Summer Game Fest Kickoff Live! takes place on June 10 at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 6pm BST (or June 11 at 3am AEST) and will be available to watch for free on “all the major livestream platforms”, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Geoff Keighley took to Twitter to confirm what we’ll see during the Summer Game Fest Kickoff Live event, and revealed that there will be 30+ games, which will include new game reveals and long-awaited updates.

Keighley also shared a new Summer Game Fest “hype reel” trailer for the event, which you can watch below. 

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Gearbox and 2K showcase – June 10

Gearbox Software and 2K Games’ ‘Be Chaotic Great’ event will be held on June 10 at 11am PT / 2pm EST /  7pm BST. A new Borderlands spin-off game called Wonderlands is expected to be revealed, and we’ll likely get a look at NBA 2K22 and WWE 2K22 in action. We might also see a new project from Mafia developer Hangar 13, so there’s plenty to tune in for. 

Koch Primetime Gaming Stream – June 11

Koch Media is hosting a stream during Summer Game Fest on June 11 at 12pm PT / 8pm BST / 10pm CEST. The publisher owns the rights to notable franchises such as Saints Row, Metro Exodus and Timesplitters. While it’s unclear what the publisher will show, we may finally see Dead Island 2 again, which was initially revealed many years ago at E3 2014. 

Ubisoft Forward – June 12  

Ubisoft has confirmed it is hosting its next Ubisoft Forward conference as part of Summer Game Fest. The digital conference is set to take place on June 12 at 12pm PT / 8pm BST / 3pm ET (or June 13 at 5am AEST). 

The pre-show will debut at 11pm PT / 7pm BST / 2pm ET (or June 13 at 4am AEST) and will begin with updates for games such as For Honor, Trackmania, The Crew 2, Brawlhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion and more.

The main show will feature a look at Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Parasite, provide more details on Far Cry 6, and a closer look at Riders Republic. We’ll also get updates on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Rainbow Six Siege. We also expect to see at least one or two surprises. 

Devolver Digital – June 12

Devlover’s annual showcase event will also be part of Summer Game Fest, and the publisher’s event takes place at 1.30pm PT / 4:30pm ET / 9:30pm BST. 

Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase – June 13

Microsoft confirmed that it is holding a games showcase on June 13 at 10am PT / 6pm BST / 1pm ET (or June 14 at 3am AEST). This showcase will be around 90 minutes long and is featuring games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks.

Square Enix Presents – June 13

Square Enix Presents will also be hosted at the Summer Game Fest, which will feature world premiers, new game announcements, updates and news from Square Enix.

The event takes place at 12:15pm PT / 3:15pm ET / 8:15pm BST. 

Back 4 Blood PVP Showcase – June 13

Tune into the PVP Showcase for Back 4 Blood, a cooperative shooter from the creators of the Left 4 Dead franchise. The showcase takes place on June 13 at 2pm PT / 10pm BST / 7am AEST and should give us another look at the survival game in action.

Steam Next Fest – June 16 to June 22

Steam Next Fest (formerly Steam Game Festival) is a multi-day celebration of upcoming Steam games, featuring hundreds of demoes. It kicks off on June 16 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST (or June 17 at 3am AEST).

What is Summer Game Fest?

Summer Game Fest is a season of digital events from game publishers and developers. Summer Game Fest isn’t exactly an event – though the Kickoff Live show is – instead it’s an overarching umbrella that encompasses many different publisher live streams. 

Summer Game Fest was set up by The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley and made its debut in 2020 – filling in the gap left by E3 2020. Last year’s Summer Game Fest was an online season of events bringing together 16 of the industry’s largest publishers, including Microsoft, Sony, Activision, Valve, Bethesda and Blizzard in a four-month cavalcade of news, trailers and game demos.

From May until August, the Summer Game Fest partnered with these publishers to release updates on game projects and announce new titles across social media platforms, as well as providing playable demos for attendees – Microsoft shared a staggering “between 75 and 100” game demos in total. 

This year’s Summer Game Fest is set to be more “condensed”, according to Keighley. While we know that the festival kicks off on June 10, there’s currently no end date. 

This will be the first year we see E3 and Summer Game Fest taking place in the same timeframe, so it will be interesting to see which publishers and developers choose to showcase at E3 and which choose to do so at Summer Game Fest – and which do both.

Who is attending?

More than 25 publishers, platforms and partners will be contributing content or hosting an event at this year’s Summer Game Fest – with more to be announced. Confirmed partners include PlayStation (which is noticeably absent from E3), Bandai Namco, Activision, Xbox, EA, Epic Games and more. You can see the list of confirmed partners above.

What happened at Summer Game Fest 2020?

Last year’s Summer Game Fest spanned several months, with the season of gaming encompassing some huge PS5 and Xbox Series X announcements. 

As part of the festival, PlayStation unveiled a sleuth of upcoming PS5 games – and the console’s design for the first time – while Microsoft debuted Halo Infinite gameplay for the first time as well, as a bunch of upcoming Xbox Series X  games. 

Summer Game Fest 2020 also saw the announcement of the likes of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time and Star Wars Squadrons, while we got a closer look at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of their release too.