Summer Game Fest 2023 Date Announced, And This Time It'll Have A Live Audience

Gamers will have yet another big event to look forward to in the summer. It's been announced that the Summer Game Fest will be returning in 2023. Summer Game Fest was originally launched as a months-long drip of gaming news and reveals as a result of Covid-induced event cancellations. Previous runs of the Summer Game Fest — starting with the inaugural one in 2020 – were digital-only, but now fans will be able to attend the kickoff show live and in person for the first time ever. 

Tickets go on sale in early 2023, and the event will take place June 8 in Los Angeles, with the 6,000-seater YouTube Theater serving as host for the big event. Once again, Geoff Keighley is your host for this one, a familiar face for those who tune into the gaming industry beyond the surface level. Can't make it? You'll also be able to catch the live stream on YouTube and Twitch. 

If you check the calendar of events in the gaming industry, you'll quickly hone in on the fact that the Summer Game Fest takes place just a few days before E3, as it would have last year had the ESA not canceled the industry's biggest gaming convention. Last year, for instance, we got our first look at a remake of "The Last Of Us" for PlayStation 5, among other high-profile reveals.

E3 is returning in 2023, but despite this, you can expect some activity from top publishers at the Summer Game Fest. "In keeping with tradition, we'll have tons of exciting announcements from the developers that are pushing the games industry forward, and will once again highlight other publisher digital events, demos, and more surprises to be announced in the coming months," said Keighley, per Gematsu. Much-anticipated blockbuster titles like "Starfield" should be out by then, and with both Microsoft and Sony feeling pressure to kick up the cadence for killer app releases on current-generation consoles, this could be the biggest summer of gaming we've experienced in years.