How to watch the Wholesome Direct presentation and fill your E3 with warm vibes

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You'll need to know how to watch the Wholesome Direct to fill your life with the soothing presence of warm and friendly games in the middle of the intense E3 2021 season.

If you watched the first Wholesome Direct presentation in May of last year, you already have some idea what to expect, but otherwise you may be wondering what sort of selection criterion "wholesome" is. As the organizers specify on their site, it's a broad term for "curating games according to their feelings of comfort, compassion, and coziness."

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While many high-profile games deal with dark themes, Wholesome Direct aims to elevate games with brighter and more hopeful depictions of life - not in an exclusionary, "this is better" way, just in a "why not check these out too" kind of way. You can check out this preview video to get a sampling of some of the games on offer for this latest Wholesome Direct - the lineup includes Ooblets, Moonglow Bay, Yokai Inn, and many more.

It's almost time! Tune into #WholesomeDirect this Saturday, June 12 at 1 PM ET (7 PM CET) for 70+ new game reveals, exclusive trailers, and developer interviews from the makers of Ooblets, Paralives, We Are OFK, Moonglow Bay, and many more. pic.twitter.com/y6BMM0WCC7June 8, 2021

Personally, I've been struck by Here Comes Niko ever since the first time I saw its cheerful hand-drawn sprites populating a series of pastel 3D islands. It feels like a Dreamcast game that fell behind some boxes in 1999 and just resurfaced, ready to charm the heck out of the whole dang world. But being pleasantly surprised by something you've never even heard of before is always the best part of big presentations like these, so I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for the next thing to add to my Steam wishlist as well. Oh, did I mention I've had Here Comes Niko on my Steam Wishlist since December? And the developer's name is Frog Vibes?! Yeah, I'm pretty into it.

Make sure to consult our E3 2021 schedule so you don't miss any of the big news from all the other presentations, either!

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.