The last preview event of the summer will focus on new looks at previously announced games, rather than brand new reveals.
There might not have been any E3 this year but this summer still played out in a similar manner to before the pandemic, with a number of publisher-specific showcases, where the Xbox one proved very successful and the PlayStation one not so much.
Traditionally, the end of the summer preview season is Gamescom in August, but it’s always been hard to know in advance what to expect from Germany’s answer to E3 and Geoff Keighley, organiser of the pre-show ONL (Opening Night Live) event, has already tried to temper expectations.
‘This year’s ONL is less about announcing brand new projects, and more about giving fans updates on some of the biggest games due out over the next year,’ he told VGC.
The only games he mentioned by name are Alan Wake 2 and Black Myth: Wukong, but his comments will immediately have fans imagining everything from GTA 6 to Kingdom Hearts 4 – but it’s probably more sensible to think smaller scale than that.
There had been some rumours that Nintendo might even use Gamescom as a venue to announce the Switch 2 but that now seems even less likely.
Keighley mentions tying in the announcements to companies that are actually at the Gamescom event, which includes Nintendo and Microsoft but not Sony.
Last year’s show ran for just over two hours and featured more than 35 games. The biggest reveal was the first look at gameplay for Death Stranding.
Hideo Kojima and Keighley are friends, so there’s a reasonable chance Gamescom 2023 could be used to debut gameplay for either Death Stranding 2 or Overdose – although the latter hasn’t officially been announced yet.
After Gamescom there’s no reason there couldn’t be another new preview event from one of the major publishers. In fact, you’d assume Sony will definitely have one if they’ve got the Project Q and PS5 Slim to launch this year.
Beyond that though the only multi-publisher event left for 2023 is The Game Awards in December, also organised by Keighley.
Rather than anything in the summer, that has now become the number one reveal event of the year, even if there’s certain publishers, such as Rockstar Games, that are unlikely to use it.
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