Summer Game Fest revealed and its first event is next week

The Summer Game Fest will bring the industry together from May through August for four coordinated months of news, reveals, and announcements.

The Game Awards producer and host Geoff Keighley announced the new meta-event today, explaining that the festival is meant in part to help fill the gap for the physical events that were canceled in response to COVID-19. That includes E3, though Keighley dropped out of that event a month before its organizers announced the show would not go on this year.

Along with the announcement, Keighley revealed the "Phase 1" lineup for Summer Game Fest participants. The list includes PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, CD Projekt Red, though it's not clear who is planning their own discrete event and who will be included in larger presentations. Keighley confirmed that Microsoft is planning a playable game festival that will also be part of Summer Game Fest.

Keighley said the events are set to begin next week, with the debut of upcoming Xbox Series X games from global developers set to be part of the Summer Game Fest.  He mentioned that "it's been a busy quarantine" in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and he's spent a lot of time listening to both game developers and fans in planning out Summer Game Fest.

"Everyone's going to do their own digital events, but how do you find a place that is a central repository of everything that's happening this summer in games?" Keighley said. "We're not trying to compete with anyone, but really trying to be this signpost directory to all the things that are happening."

We'll be hosting our own summer festivities with a virtual show in June - get ready for the Future Games Show.