Sony at E3 2021: What to expect

(Image credit: Guerrilla Games)

This year's E3 conference schedule is mostly locked in, with several days of publisher showcases spread out from June 10 - June 15. The most notable absence is Sony, which has skipped out on holding an official E3 event since 2018. Unless Sony makes a surprise last-minute announcement, there will be no PlayStation event this year.

But that doesn't mean Sony will be MIA all summer. And what we're most interested in—Sony's PC gaming plans—likely wouldn't have had a starring role in an E3 press conference, anyway.

Will Sony hold an E3 PlayStation event this summer?

Sony hasn't announced any plans for upcoming State of Play events, and has skipped E3 for the past several years. But it's not the only publisher to do that. EA, for example, stopped attending E3 several years ago, setting up its own fan event and EA Play livestream near the E3 convention center. It's retaining that distance this year even with E3 being an online-only event: The EA Play livestream isn't happening until July 22. Sony has all summer to hold its own event.

Here's some information on past Sony event timing that can give us a rough idea of what we could see from PlayStation this summer.

2020

Ghosts of Tsushima State of Play: Announced May 12, streamed May 14
The Last of Us Part 2 State of Play: Announced May 25, streamed May 27
State of Play: Announced August 3, streamed August 6
PS5 UI State of Play: No announcement, posted October 15

2021

State of Play: Announced February 23, streamed February 25
State of Play: Announced April 26, streamed April 29
Horizon Zero Dawn State of Play: Announced May 25, streamed May 27

The pattern is pretty clear here: Sony doesn't tend to give its State of Play videos much lead time. Whatever Sony has planned for this summer, it likely won't be announced weeks or months ahead of time, like many of this year's E3 events. We'll probably have two days notice.

It seems like most of Sony's first party PlayStation 5 games are still quite a ways off, too. A June 2 interview with PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst feels like it's meant to preempt fan expectations of any big E3 announcements (it also included the news that the next God of War has been delayed to 2022).

Hulst also shot down the idea of PS5 exclusives launching simultaneously on PC, but he did mention that there are still more PC ports on the way.

When will we expect to hear more about PS4 to PC ports?

A recent Sony investor presentation included a slide indicating Uncharted 4 is coming to PC, following Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone. But when?

Hulst didn't say. "We’re still early on in our planning for PC," he said, adding that Horizon's success "shows there’s an appetite from gamers outside the PlayStation ecosystem to experience the amazing portfolio of games that PlayStation fans have enjoyed for years."

Hulst said that "That’s the goal—we want to reach new gamers who haven’t yet experienced the great stories, characters, and worlds that we’ve built. Releasing games on PC will not come ever at the expense of building an exciting lineup of great console games."

Last May, Hulst confirmed Horizon Zero Dawn was coming to PC in another interview with the PlayStation Blog, and Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan casually dropped that Days Gone was coming to PC in an interview about the next-gen PlayStation VR headset, of all things.

Based on those two announcements, Sony probably isn't holding any PC news back just for a big State of Play stream. Whenever it's ready to talk about Uncharted coming to PC (or, hopefully, Bloodborne), we'll hear about it.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).