Alongside new major announcements, Kick Off Live! will feature Day of the Devs, an indie games showcase headed up by iam8bit and Double Fine Productions. And it will also include a performance by Weezer, who will perform a new “stream safe game soundtrack song” that Summer Game Fest promises will be freely streamable across Twitch, YouTube, and “anywhere else without being blocked or losing monetization.”The event will continue over the course of June, with updates from the following publishers to be expected either within Kick Off Live! or at some other point during the full event: 2K, Activision, Amazon Games, Annapurna Interactive, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Battlestate Games, Blizzard Entertainment, Capcom, Devolver Digital, Dotemu, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Finji, Frontier, Gearbox Publishing, Hi-Rez Studios, Inner Sloth, Koch Media, Mediatonic, MiHoYo, PlayStation, Psyonix, Raw Fury, Riot Games, Saber Interactive, Sega, Steam, Square Enix, Tribeca Festival, Tencent Games, Warner Bros. Games, Ubisoft, Wizards of the Coast, and Xbox.
A full calendar of free, live-streamed events associated with Summer Game Fest will be available on the official website.
Though Summer Game Fest isn’t technically part of E3, it comes in right before E3 starts on June 12. So far, Ubisoft has announced its own major event at the show, a number of other partners have confirmed their involvement, and EA has announced its annual event won’t be until July. Summer Game Fest is also a distinct event from IGN’s Summer of Gaming, which is partnered with E3 2021.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.