Like many other things, E3 has been affected severely by COVID over the last couple of years. E3 2020 was cancelled entirely, and though the show came back in 2021, it did so as a purely digital experience. Recently, the ESA confirmed that E3 2022’s in-person event had been cancelled again, due to concerns regarding COVID’s Omicron variant. The assumption at that time would be that this year would see E3 being another digital-only event- but it seems like that might not be the case.
In a clip that he recently uploaded to TikTok (and then later to YouTube), GamesBeat journalist Jeff Grubb claimed that E3 2022’s digital event had “probably” been cancelled as well. Grubb did not elaborate on the same, but given the fact that the ESA hasn’t officially said anything about whether or not a replacement online event is even being planned, it wouldn’t come as a huge surprise.
Of course, the Geoff Keighley-hosted and produced event Summer Game Fest is going to this year, while there’s also the chance that various publishers will decide to do their own individual streams. Of course, 2022 has only just begin, so it’s probably going to be a while before we start getting concrete information on what summer is going to look like for gaming.
