Summer Game Fest 2023: all the news and announcements

With the death of E3 nearly complete, Summer Game Fest has become the go-to summer event for gamers to get hyped about. But this year’s Summer Game Fest, while it featured games that included a wide range of genres and a great diversity of characters, did not feature a single woman onstage.

Throughout the almost two-hour showcase, host Geoff Keighley brought up a number of personalities to interview onstage. He had industry veteran Ed Boon up to talk about Mortal Kombat 1. Nic Cage made an appearance to talk more about his Dead by Daylight character. Bryan Intihar came on stage to reveal the release date for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. But not once was a woman given that opportunity.

Devolver Digital shared details and trailers about some projects in development during its latest showcase on Thursday. However, much of the presentation revolved around a tongue-in-cheek mascot, “Volvy,” a fictionalized history of the mascot’s impact on gaming culture, and the “return” of the character as a robot (VOLV-E). It was weird, but that’s kind of Devolver’s thing for its presentations.

You can watch the whole 22-minute show right here or catch up on the four featured games below (well, in addition to everything involving Volvy):

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to the remake of the beloved RPG, finally has a release window. It’ll be coming to the PS5 in early 2024. The announcement was made as part of Summer Game Fest.

In a trailer, we got a major new look at the upcoming game. Cloud and crew wandered grassy fields, visited what looked to be Cosmo Canyon, and took on some fearsome enemies. Even Yuffie, who first came back in Final Fantasy VII Remake’s DLC, showed up in the trailer. The game will be available on two discs, according to the trailer.

It looks like Epic Games is doing a little rewilding on the Fortnite island. Ahead of the battle royale game’s next season — Chapter 4: Season 3, if you’re counting — the developer gave a brief taste of what to expect through a trailer that debuted at Summer Game Fest. The new season is called “Wilds,” and it introduces a new jungle biome to the map. The change shouldn’t be too much of a surprise; Epic has been teasing the wild theme over the past week. Oh, also, Optimus Prime is in the game now.

While we don’t have much to go on in terms of gameplay changes or other additions — though it looks like you can ride the raptors now — it won’t be too long now before we learn everything. The new season debuts on June 9th.

Marvel Snap is one of the best collectible card games this side of vanilla Hearthstone, and it’s getting a new feature players have been asking for since the release of Battle Mode. During Summer Game Fest, Marvel Snap frontman Ben Brode announced the all-new Conquest mode would be launching on June 13th.

“For our most competitive, high-skilled players, we wanted to give them the ultimate challenge with Conquest,” he said in a press release. “Players can now find out who truly is the best of the best and worthy of ultimate Marvel Snap glory!”

After relentless teasing, showcases, and extended gameplay trailers, we now know when we can play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. During Summer Game Fest, game director Bryan Intihar made an appearance to share the last bit of the game we haven’t seen — a release date. On October 20th players can suit up as Miles and Peter to take down Kraven the Hunter and Venom in Spider-Man 2.

Also during the presentation, Intihar shared a bit more about one of the game’s villains, Kraven the Hunter. Intihar said that Kraven was unlike any character they’ve ever featured because he’s not superpowered or uses magic; he’s simply the best at what he does. Kraven’s coming to New York for his “greatest hunt,” with Intihar alluding that it’s not only Peter or Miles that he’s stalking.

Horror legend nerd John Carpenter is helping make a new game called John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. Based on a brief trailer, it looks like you’ll be taking on hordes of zombies in a first-person shooter — fortunately, there were a lot of cars featured in the trailer that were used to fend off the enemies.

Carpenter is known for his work on some iconic horror franchises, including Halloween and The Thing. But he’s also a big gaming nerd — in a recent interview with AV Club, he said that he’s “addicted” to Fallout 76, “loved” Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and thought that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was “pretty damn good.” Hopefully he takes the best of what he loves from his favorite games and infuses that into Toxic Commando.

After a long period of relative quiet, Alan Wake 2 now seems to be everywhere. The latest: a lengthy clip of gameplay was shown off at this year’s Summer Game Fest live keynote, which shows just how much of a survival horror experience this sequel will really be.

This fresh look at the game comes not long after developer Remedy Entertainment revealed a new trailer at Sony’s big PlayStation Showcase at the end of May. If you missed it, here’s that clip:

2D side-scrolling Sonic is back, and this time, he’s bringing his friends (and a very old enemy).

I have remained fixed at Sega’s headquarters, demanding daily that it release Sonic Mania 2. And while my efforts have not yet been recognized, it seems like Sega’s giving me the next best thing. Announced during Summer Game Fest, Sonic Superstars looks like a beautiful mix of 3D graphics and classic 2D Sonic side-scrolling.

Despite the name, Summer Game Fest isn’t entirely about games — case in point, we got a brand-new trailer for The Witcher’s third season. The clip shows off just about everything the series is known for: bloody battles, terrifying monsters, fiery magic, and Geralt looking very awkward at a social affair. And, of course, he spends lots of time talking about how neutral he is.

Season 3 of The Witcher starts streaming on Netflix on June 29th — or at least, some of it does. Just like Stranger Things before it, the latest season of the fantasy show will be split into two parts. Volume one will debut in June, while the second volume will premiere in July.

Ubisoft just revealed new details about a Prince of Persia game — and no, it wasn’t the long-delayed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. At Summer Game Fest 2023, Ubisoft kicked off the show with a new side-scrolling action platformer, called Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

“Dash into a stylish and thrilling action-adventure platformer game set in a mythological Persian world where the boundaries of time and space are yours to manipulate,” according to the game’s website. You’ll be able to access “time powers” for fighting and platforming, and the game will have different biomes that have their own “identity, wonders, and dangers.”

During Keigh3, we got our first gory glimpse of gameplay from the latest Mortal Kombat.

There was a lot of blood and a lot of gory fatalities, so you’re gonna have to watch the trailer on YouTube. From the trailer, it also looks like the game’s story might touch on some of the themes that were featured in the recent movie. Series creator Ed Boon also made an appearance to talk more about the game’s new feature — Kameo fighters.