Image: ESA
E3 2022’s digital event has been cancelled, but the games showcase will return next year.
It’s official: E3 won’t be happening this year. According to IGN, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has confirmed that E3 2022 has been cancelled, even after shifting to an all-digital format due to the ongoing pandemic. E3 2021 was also held virtually, but it looks like the ESA couldn't make that happen again this year.
The ESA’s statement reads:
We previously announced that E3 would not be held in person in 2022 due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19. Today, we announce that there will also be no digital E3 showcase in 2022. Instead, we will devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer.
E3 has had a hard go of it lately. The massive games showcase was cancelled in 2020 due to the rise in Covid-19 cases, and returned in 2021 as a digital collection of developer streams instead of the physical conferences it’s become known for.
Not only did it have to compete with Summer Game Fest, which more or less did the same thing, but it also began to seem less necessary with other companies holding digital presentations of their own to show off upcoming titles. Sony now does State of Play presentations, and Nintendo has always had its Directs. Other companies like Square Enix also held their own digital streams for the first time, free of E3, thus proving that the event wasn’t needed to show off their titles at all.
Games publishers don’t have to plan an entire games showcase around a single week in the year anymore, and can now freely schedule presentations and streams whenever they have something to show. This means less stress on their part, as coming up with game demos and trailers is no simple task. EA cancelled their EA Play showcase this year precisely for this reason. Ultimately however, it does leave E3 in a much less relevant place than it used to be. It used to be known affectionately as ‘Gaming Christmas’ - that time of the year when we’d get all sorts of exciting trailers and news for highly anticipated blockbuster games.
We’ll still have lots of gaming news to look forward to this summer, however. Summer Game Fest has confirmed on Twitter that it will return this June with a ‘live kickoff show’, which should show off a bunch of trailers and announcements for upcoming games. Hopefully, E3 returns in 2023 with a bang.