Summer Game Fest 2023: all the news and announcements

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.

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.

Summer Game Fest 2023 is nearly here. Geoff Keighley’s major summer gaming event takes place on Thursday, and this year, it might have some special significance. With E3 canceled, gaming companies wanting to show off their latest projects may turn to Summer Game Fest instead, which hopefully means that we’ll see some major news from the show.

There are already a few notable things to look forward to. CD Projekt Red has already said that Cyberpunk 2077’s upcoming expansion starring Idris Elba, titled Phantom Liberty, will be playable at the in-person Play Days portion of Summer Game Fest, so I’m guessing it will make an appearance during the live event. Keighley said on Twitter that we’ll see a “world premiere first look” of the new Fortnite season, “Wilds.” And the Summer Game Fest Twitter account has been teasing a “gameplay reveal” of Mortal Kombat 1.

E3 2023 has been canceled, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have big summer gaming events to look forward to. We’re already aware of at least three things you should mark on your calendar, and it seems like there will be major news of some kind from each one.

Here’s the 2023 summer gaming events that we’re currently aware of. Given that E3 is now officially not happening, it’s possible this list will grow if more companies want to make a splash in June.