Following the cancelation of 2020’s event due to covid-19, and much rumor and speculation regarding this year’s iteration of what was once the most important video game trade show in the world, the Entertainment Software Association today announces E3 2021, a free all-digital event running June 12 through 15. Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games, and Koch Media are already slated to participate.
The good news is everybody gets to go to E3 this year for free. The other good news is nobody needs to fly across the country or around the world to participate in the annual LA-based sweat-fest that is E3. Instead, we’ll all be sitting comfortably at home or at work, watching our screens as we always do, only now our screens will have the official E3 logo on them instead of the logos of the two dozen or so digital events created last year to fill the void left by the cancelation of E3 2020.
Those other events will still happen, but we’ll also have E3 2021, a show that will connect developers and publishers digitally with fans around the world. The official ESA announcement doesn’t hint at what such a digital show will look like. We’re guessing there will be a lot of trailers and pre-filmed interviews with industry insiders. Whichever form the great destroyer takes, Kotaku has confirmed that the event will be completely free for attendees, with no elements whatsoever locked behind a paywall.
“For more than two decades, E3 has been the premier venue to showcase the best that the video game industry has to offer, while uniting the world through games,” said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA via press release. “We are evolving this year’s E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games.”
You heard the man. Indispensable. Just try to dispense with it. You will most likely fail. See you all at E3 2021.