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The Electronic Entertainment Expo will return, in one form or another.

Every year, the Entertainment Software Association, or ESA, holds the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California. Normally, E3 would be a be a place for major and indie video game publishers and developers to show off their works to the public with presentations, announcements, and demos. However, last year’s E3 was cancelled entirely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Summer months nearly upon us, conventioneers have been wondering whether E3 will return this year, or if the pandemic will hold it back once again.


As it turns out, the convention will return, in a manner of speaking. The ESA announced today that E3 will be held this Summer from 12 to June 15. However, in the interest of pandemic safety, especially in California where cases are still quite high, the event will be entirely virtual, not unlike multiple other gaming press events held over the past year. While this does unfortunately mean consumers won’t be able to get hands on with any of the announced games, the ESA has confirmed that the event will not have a paywall, so anyone anywhere will be able to watch the presentations as they unfold.

Speaking of which, in a statement to Destructoid this morning, the ESA confirmed that they had received early E3 participation commitments “from the following publishers: Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games and Koch Media, and more to come.”

Curiously, Sony is absent from the early confirmation list, implying that they may be interested in hosting their own conference like last year instead of grouping up with the rest of the industry. We’ll likely find out more as the Summer gets closer.