With just a few weeks to go before June arrives and brings with it many gaming events, IGN has revealed that IGN Expo will return as part of IGN's Summer of Gaming, adding to what is set to be a huge month for video games. The event will apparently be a showcase that will include even more reveals and show gameplay trailers before they are shown anywhere else.
This will be IGN's second Summer of Gaming event, and it is already looking to be much bigger than last year. After E3 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19, IGN decided to create its own digital event called, though Summer of Gaming still had its own problems.
IGN has announced that the IGN Expo will be returning on June 11, beginning at 1 pm PDT / 4 pm EDT / 9 pm BST. In the post which announced the event, IGN promised that the showcase would include game reveals, new gameplay trailers, and announcements. Unlike last year's event, which had five different IGN Expo events, this year will only have one "action-packed" showcase. The post also revealed that IGN is also partnering with Geoff Keighley’s Kick Off Live, marking the beginning of Summer Game Fest, another huge gaming event in June.
E3 will also occur during IGN's Summer of Gaming, though it will be an all-digital event this year. E3 has made June the biggest month of the year for gaming news, and it seems like events like IGN's Summer of Gaming and Summer Games Fest continue to build on this legacy. Now, gamers have a whole month's worth of news and events, rather than just the week of E3, and the industry benefits from the focused attention of the public and the media. However, the amount of news, announcements, and reveals can lead to smaller games and studios being drowned out. Hopefully, with announcements spread over a whole month, most games could have their time in the spotlight.
It will be interesting to see exactly what the surprises the IGN Expo has planned. Though with so many digital gaming events taking place in one month, there is a question of oversaturation. IGN's 2020 Summer of gaming was billed as a mini-E3, which was an exciting proposal in a year where E3 was canceled. However, this year sees the return of E3 and Summer Game Fest alongside it. All of these events will be battling over who can reveal new games and information first, leading to one of the events being less interesting than the others. That being said, IGN is still giving gamers yet another reason to be excited for the coming months, and the event will be worth watching.
Source: IGN