Announced right before the 2021 Game Awards, Summer Game Fest will return in 2022. Its host and creator, Geoff Keighley, announced the return of the Summer Game Fest showcase via Twitter. Over the last couple of weeks, it has been confirmed that Keighley's "season of gaming" will be held this June.

Last year, Summer Game Fest spanned from June through to July, kicking off with its "Kick Off Live!" livestream; featuring a handful of game announcements like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and Elden Ring, plus some interviews with developers. Publishers and studios then scattered their various reveals throughout the show's timeframe. While Summer Game Fest has varied drastically over the last two years, here's how it can improve in 2022.

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Better Pacing For Summer Game Fest 2022

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One of the biggest gripes from video game fans over the last two years has been the pacing of Summer Game Fest. When it first launched in 2021, the event lasted for a whopping four months — from May until August of that year — while in 2022, it lasted half as long. As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, any video announcement made by publishers had started to feel disconnected from the "season of gaming," despite showcases carrying the "Summer Game Fest" name.

Months-long "video game extravaganzas" can become somewhat fatiguing and disconnected after some time, which is why conferences like Gamescom, Tokyo Games Show, or E3 only last up to a week if media days are included. Summer Game Fest could learn from these conferences and try to neatly bundle up its "festival" into a week-long show, including publisher showcases.

More Video Game Announcements, Less Developer Chatter

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One of the things that Geoff Keighley tried to do with Summer Games Fest was to involve game developers and cast members more intimately in the event. He did this by hosting interviews and featuring some keynote-esque segments with the likes of Ashly Burch (Tiny Tina), Hideo Kojima, and Giancarlo Esposito (Anton Castillo, Far Cry 6) throughout the two-month-long event. While those segments were interesting and exciting, a majority of fans weren't that interested in seeing those segments.

The fact of the matter is that most video game fans do not care for the ins and outs of a game's development, or much about what a cast member thinks of the upcoming title. Most of them only care about game announcements and nothing more, though there are certainly fans who do care about that nuance. Now that E3 2022 is officially canceled, there are a lot of titles like Forspoken that have no "announcement home," per se. This year's Summer Game Fest should emphasize concise video game announcements and news throughout its festival period.

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Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra preforming at the Tokyo opera city concert hall

A fan favorite from the 2021 Summer Game Fest was the celebration showcase of Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th Anniversary, which featured a stunning performance by the Sonic Symphony (Philharmonic Orchestra Prague). If there's one thing that video game fans seem to love, it is orchestral performances of their favorite video game soundtracks. Fans love them so much that the touring series Video Games Live exists.

2022 is also the year celebrating the 20th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts, while Kirby celebrates its 30th anniversary. The Nintendo Wii system also released 10 years ago, which is a prime candidate for an orchestral arrangement based on that. If not to celebrate an anniversary, the recent release of Elden Ring and the upcoming release of the Breath of the Wild sequel should also give Summer Game Fest plenty of video game fodder to organize an orchestral performance from.

Give Summer Game Fest a Better Structure

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One of the best things about an event like E3 is that one knows precisely what they can look forward to and specifically when. There is an event schedule listing everything a video game fan will see and experience, along with the date and time of said experience. Summer Game Fest doesn't have such a concrete schedule, with developers and publishers hosting showcases here and there throughout the event period.

Providing a week-long, shorter time frame for Summer Game Fest allows organizers to prepare the event better. A big complaint from the last two years is that Keighley's "gaming season" felt disorganized and was challenging to follow. There wasn't a coherent schedule that fans could refer to and see when their favorite publishers would host their showcase. 2022 can be the year that Summer Game Fest hosts a more organized event.

Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest has plenty of potential to be greater than it currently is. There is space in the industry for more video game celebrations, but organizers need to realize who their primary audience is and coordinate their events accordingly. Once they do that, the event could become an excellent alternative to E3.

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