Summer Game Fest returns to fill the E3-shaped hole in our hearts on June 7

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MAY 31: Geoff Keighley attends the Diablo IV Experiential Launch Event at Vibiana in Downtown Los Angeles on May 31, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Blizzard Entertainment)

(Image credit: Getty Images)

E3 may be dead but the Summer Game Fest is alive and well, and will return to action for 2024 on June 7 with another live-and-livestreamed show happening at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles.

Summer Game Fest 2024 will be a "cross-platform live showcase of game announcements, trailers and more." Details on who will be there and what they'll be showing off haven't been revealed—have to have some surprises, after all—but the show will run for two hours and, as event founder and host Geoff Keighley put it, serve up a "showcase of what's next for videogames."

The rise of Summer Game Fest has been quite a thing to see. For nearly 30 years, E3—the Electronic Entertainment Expo—was the preeminent videogame showcase in North America, the one everyone wanted to see. But its dominance began to wane in the mid-2010s due to a mix of rising costs, the growing popularity of livestreaming, and the advent of more consumer-focused events like PAX and, of course, Summer Game Fest.

Summer Game Fest lands at around the same time E3 used to, but it's a very different sort of event, envisioned from the beginning as a concentrated, consumer-oriented display meant to be blasted directly into the eyeballs of gamers. As someone who remembers the excitement of the early days of E3—I was never able to attend, but I read about it voraciously in magazines and forums—there's an element of sadness to its demise, but there's no question that Summer Game Fest is a far better fit for the very online world that gamers now live in.

Taking place immediately after Summer Game Fest will be Day of the Devs: SGF Edition, a showcase of "more than a dozen incredible games from game developers of all different backgrounds." Hope you've cleared your calendar for the day.

If you're going to be in LA on the big day and want to attend live, tickets will be available for purchase from Ticketmaster on May 7. If not, you can watch it livestreamed on the platform of your choice—we'll have details on how and where to watch online as the big event gets closer.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.