Marvel Tōkon, Resident Evil Requiem and extra

It is early June, which suggests it is time for a ton of video game occasions! Rising from the ashes of E3, Geoff Keighley’s Summer time Recreation Fest is now the premium gaming occasion of the 12 months, simply inching forward of… Geoff Keighley’s Recreation Awards in December. In contrast to the present it changed, Summer time Recreation Fest is an egalitarian affair, spotlighting video games from AAA builders and small indies throughout a various set of livestreams. SGF 2025 contains 15 particular person occasions working from June 3-9 — you’ll find the full Summer Game Fest 2025 schedule here — and we’re smack dab in the midst of that programming proper now.

We’re overlaying SGF 2025 with a small crew on the bottom in LA and a far bigger group of writers tuning in remotely to the varied livestreams. Count on recreation previews, interviews and reactions to reach over the approaching days (the present’s in-person element runs from Saturday-Monday), and a boatload of recent trailers and launch date bulletins in between.

Via all of it, we’re collating the largest bulletins proper right here, with hyperlinks out to extra in-depth protection the place we’ve got it, in chronological order.

Tuesday, June 3

State of Unreal: The Witcher IV and Fortnite AI

Epic hitched its wagon to SGF this 12 months, aligning its annual developer Unreal Fest convention, which final happened within the fall of 2024, with the patron occasion. The convention was held in Orlando, Florida, from June 2-5, with nicely over 100 developer classes targeted on Unreal Engine. The spotlight was State of Unreal, which was the primary occasion on the official Summer time Recreation Fest schedule. Amid a bunch of very cool tech demos and bulletins, we received some significant updates on Epic’s personal Fortnite and CD PROJEKT RED’s upcoming The Witcher IV.

The Witcher IV was first unveiled at The Recreation Awards final 12 months, and we have heard little or no about it since. At State of Unreal, we received a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5.6, performed in actual time on a base PS5. The roughly 10-minute slot featured a mixture of gameplay and cinematics, and confirmed off an in depth, bustling world. Maybe the technical spotlight was Nanite Foliage, an extension of UE5’s Nanite system for geometry that renders foliage with out the extent of element pop-in that’s maybe essentially the most widespread graphical aberration nonetheless plaguing video games at the moment. On the sport aspect, we noticed a city crammed with a whole lot of NPCs going about their enterprise. The city itself wasn’t fairly on the size of The Witcher III‘s Novigrad Metropolis, however nonetheless felt alive in a method past something the final recreation achieved.

It is truthful to say that Fortnite‘s second within the highlight was… much less spectacular. Sizzling on the heels of smooshing a profane Darth Vader AI into the sport, Epic introduced that creators will be able to roll their own AI NPCs into the sport later this 12 months.

Wednesday, June 4

PlayStation State of Play: Marvel Tōkon, Silent Hill f and the return of Lumines

One other firm getting a headstart on proceedings was Sony, who threw its third State of Play of the 12 months onto the Summer time Recreation Fest schedule a pair days forward of the opening night time occasion. It was a packed stream by Sony’s requirements, with over 20 video games and even a shock {hardware} announcement.

Probably the most time was given to Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, a brand new PlayStation Studios tag fighter that fuses Marvel Superheroes with anime visuals. It is also 4 versus 4, which is wild. It is being developed by Arc System Works, the crew maybe greatest identified for the Responsible Gear sequence. It is coming to PS5 and PC in 2026. Not-so-coincidentally, Sony additionally introduced Challenge Defiant, a wi-fi battle stick that’ll assist PS5 and PC and arrive in… 2026.

Elsewhere, we received a parade of launch dates, with concrete dates for Sword of the Sea (August 19) Baby Steps (September 8) and Silent Hill f (September 25). We additionally received affirmation of that Final Fantasy Tactics remaster (coming September 30), an an all-new… let’s name it aspirational “2026” date for Pragmata, which, should you’re holding rating, was marketed alongside the launch of the PS5. Nice going, Capcom!

Rounding out the present was a bunch of smaller bulletins. We heard a couple of new Nioh recreation, Nioh 3, coming in 2026; Suda51’s new weirdness Romeo is a Dead Man; and Lumines Arise, a long-awaited return to the Lumines sequence from the developer behind Tetris Impact.

Thursday, June 5

Diddly squat

There have been completely no Summer time Recreation Fest occasions scheduled on Thursday. We assume that is out of respect for antipodean bushes, as June 5 was Arbor Day in New Zealand. (It is most likely as a result of everybody was enjoying Nintendo Swap 2.)

Friday, June 6

Summer time Recreation Fest Dwell: Resident Evil Requiem, Stranger Than Heaven and sequels abound

It is truthful to say that earlier Summer time Recreation Fest opening night time streams have been… whelming at greatest. This 12 months’s displaying was definitely an enchancment, not least as a result of there have been exponentially fewer cell recreation and MMO adverts littering the presentation. Sure, folks tracking Gabe Newell’s yacht had been upset that Half-Life 3 did not present up, and the Silksong crowd stays unhappy, alone and unloved, however there have been nonetheless some big bulletins.

Maybe the largest of all was the “ninth” (Zero and Code Veronica erasure is actual) Resident Evil recreation. Resident Evil Requiem is alleged to be a tonal shift in comparison with the final recreation, Resident Evil Village. This is hoping it reinvigorates the sequence in the identical method Resident Evil VII did following the disappointing 6.

We additionally heard extra from Sega studio Ryu Ga Gotoku about Challenge Century, which appears to be a 1943 tackle the Yakuza sequence. It is now called Stranger Than Heaven, and there is a (actually) jazzy new trailer on your consideration.

Exterior of these large swings, there have been sequels to a bunch of mid-sized video games, like Atomic Coronary heart, Code Vein and Mortal Shell, and a religious sequel of types: Scott Pilgrim EX, a beat-em-up that takes the baton from the 2010 Ubisoft brawler Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Recreation.

There have been numerous different bulletins on the present, together with:

Day of the Devs: Blighted, Snap & Seize, Blighted and Escape Academy II

As all the time, the kickoff present was adopted by a Day of the Devs stream, which targeted on smaller initiatives and indie video games. You may watch the full stream here.

Escape Academy has been firmly on our best couch co-op games list for a while, and now it is received a sequel on the best way. Escape Academy 2: Again 2 College takes the identical fundamental co-op escape room enjoyable and expands on it, transferring away from a level-select map display and in the direction of a totally 3D college campus for gamers to discover. As long as the puzzles themselves are as enjoyable as the unique, it looks as if a winner.

Semblance studio Nyamakop is again with new jam known as Relooted, a heist recreation with a novel twist. As in the true world, museums within the West are full of things plundered from African nations beneath colonialism. In contrast to the true world, in Relooted the colonial powers have signed a treaty to return this stuff to their locations of origin, however issues aren’t going to plan, as many artifacts are discovering their method into personal collections. It is your job to steal them again. The British Museum is quaking in its boots.

Listed below are a few of the different video games that caught our eye:

The remainder: Ball x Pit, Hitman and 007 First Gentle

After Day of the Devs got here Devolver. Its Summer time Recreation Fest present was a little bit extra muted than ordinary, specializing in a single recreation: Ball x Pit. It is the following recreation from Kenny Solar, an indie developer who beforehand made the sleeper hit Mr. Solar’s Hatbox. Ball x Pit is being made by a crew of greater than half a dozen devs, in distinction to Solar’s principally solo prior works. It seems like an attention-grabbing mashup of Breakout and base-building mechanics, and there is a demo on Steam available right now.

Then got here IOI, the makers of Hitman, who put collectively a basic E3-style cringefest, filled with awkward pauses, ill-paced demos and repetitive trailers. Actually, as somebody who’s been watching recreation firm shows for twenty years or so, it was a pleasant second of nostalgia.

Away from the marvel of a presenter attempting to deal with every part going incorrect, the present did have some precise content material, with an prolonged demo of the brand new James Bond-themed Hitman mission, an announcement that Hitman is coming to iOS and table tops, and a presentation on MindsEye, a recreation from former GTA producer Leslie Benzies that IOI is publishing.

Saturday-Sunday: Xbox and far, rather more

Now you are all caught up. We’re anticipating loads of information this weekend, principally from Xbox on Sunday. We’ll be updating this text by means of the weekend and past, however you’ll find the newest bulletins from Summer time Recreation Fest 2025 on our entrance web page.