Valve pushes the Steam Summer Game Festival back a week

Steam's Summer Game Festival has been delayed a week, Valve has announced.

The event was originally slated to kick off Tuesday June 9, but will now begin the following week, June 16, and run until June 22. Valve has yet to give a reason behind the delay, but it's safe to assume it's related to worldwide protests following the police killing of George Floyd on in Minneapolis on May 25.

PlayStation's Future of Gaming PS5 event was the first major gaming event to be postponed in the wake of the anger and unrest sparked by Floyd's death. Other gaming companies made similar decisions this week, like Epic, which delayed Fortnite season 3, and Rockstar, which shut down GTA and Red Dead Online for two hours in Floyd's memory.

Of course, there's a tiny possibility Valve delayed the Summer Game Festival for another reason, but that would be one hell of a coincidence. Either way, the third iteration of the Steam Game Festival will need to wait a bit longer.

Like previous Steam Game Festivals, the "Summer Edition" is geared up to spotlight upcoming games with free, limited-time demos you can play from the comfort of home. March's event brought over 40 free demos for unreleased games, many of which were set to be revealed during canceled in-person gaming events like Indie Megabooth, Day of the Devs, and GDC 2020. Considering Steam's Summer Game Festival was originally scheduled for the week of E3, expect another big lineup of free demos this time around.

Here are the best upcoming games we're still expecting to launch in 2020.