Summer Game Fest 2025 preview: The big games and developers to expect at Friday's livestream

E3 has been deceased long enough that we don't even refer to June's flurry of videogame announcements as "the event formerly known as E3" anymore. Thanks to the march of time and the brand-building acumen of Geoff Keighley, it's just Summer Game Fest now, referring simultaneously to a live showcase hosted by Keighley, an in-person event for media referred to as "Play Days", and all of the many other June gaming showcases.

In this article, I'm mostly talking about what we expect to see at the Summer Game Fest livestream, which airs Friday, June 6 at 2 pm Pacific on YouTube, but we'll of course be covering all of the weekend's showcases, which includes our own PC Gaming Show on Sunday.

We'll also be on the ground in LA for Play Days, where we'll be previewing just-announced games, talking to developers, and producing videos in partnership with HP Omen, thanks to whom we've been able to bring along an ice cream truck—both to evoke the Omen Max 16's cooling capabilities and because ice cream is delicious.

All of our SGF coverage will be collected under the Summer Game Fest 2025 tag, and you can find all of our video coverage on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Back to the topic at hand: The Summer Game Fest main event, which will be streamed live from LA's YouTube Theater on Friday. Not all of the trailers and announcements we'll see in the show will come from companies that paid to be in it, but many will be, so we can use the published list of SGF partners to anticipate a big chunk of the event.

New developers with unrevealed games

Art related to the first game from Soft Rains, a new developer. (Image credit: Soft Rains)

It's a really big list, but I'll start with just two, which stand out to me as unknown quantities: new developers whose games we haven't seen yet.

• Raw Power Games: According to this Danish developer's website, it's making "a vast medieval sandbox set in Europe" and aims to deliver "an immersive medieval battle experience." The as-yet-untitled game is coming to PC first, and there are some notable designers involved, including a former lead designer on Cyberpunk 2077. There's a twist, though: The studio is really into generative AI.
• Soft Rains: This is a new studio headed by Joel Burgess, whose resume includes Bethesda Game Studios (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/4/76), Ubisoft Toronto (Watch Dogs Legion), and Capybara Games (Grindstone, Below). It's making a singleplayer sci-fi action game.

Big studios and publishers

Dying Light: The Beast (Image credit: Techland)

The following Summer Game Fest partners are notable to me either because we can easily guess what big game they're showing, or because there are so many things they could show that we might get a surprise from them.

• 505 Games: Publisher of Wu Chang: Fallen Feathers, which we first saw in 2021.
• 2K Games: Mafia: The Old Country seems likely, and Borderlands 4 maybe.
• Bandai Namco: Its upcoming games include The Blood of the Dawnwalker, Little Nightmares 3, and Shadow Labyrinth.
• Capcom: Probably not Resident Evil 9 but you're welcome to cross your fingers.
• CD Projekt: Feels early for The Witcher 4, but it did just feature in a tech demo.
• Embark: Maker of The Finals and the upcoming Arc Raiders.
• IO Interactive: We'll see its 007 game, surely. It's also doing a post-SGF stream.
• Square Enix: Presumably not just involved to promote the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy set.
• Techland: Announced Dying Light: The Beast last year, so expect to see that.
• Xbox: Microsoft has its own showcase on Sunday, but it might tease some games that it'll show in more detail there. There's tons it could be ready to show. To name a few: The Outer Worlds 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Fable, State of Decay 3, Gears of War: E-Day, Clockwork Revolution.
• PlayStation: Aside from Death Stranding 2, Sony could show any of its upcoming PS5 exclusives, though we're seeing lots of them at State of Play.
• Epic Games: Since Tim Sweeney's shop has a publishing wing these days, it could bring any number of things along, not just Fortnite news.
• Pearl Abyss: The maker of MMO Black Desert Online has a new action RPG called Crimson Desert on the way.
• Sega: Probably talkin' Switch 2, but could have surprise for us.
• Steam: Streams the various SGF shows and puts on a related sale event. Probably won't have any big announcement, but there could be something about SteamOS or the Steam Deck. Valve is also rumored to be making an all-in-one VR headset.

Even more big and small SGF partners

A screenshot from Nekki's Spine, which will be at SGF. (Image credit: Nekki Limited)

And finally, here are the rest of this year's Summer Game Fest partners and what they're known for or are likely to show up with. It's a long list:

• 1047 Games: The studio behind Splitgate 2.
• Amazon Games: Aside from its MMOs, it's got a game called King of Meat coming. No surprises rumored that I know of, but you never know.
• Annapurna Interactive: Lots of upcoming Annapurna games could show up.
• Atari: The old-timer is publishing new games again.
• Bellring Games: Making Mistfall Hunter, an "extraction RPG."
• Blumhouse Games: A fount of horror games
• Coffee Stain: Was recently part of some Embracer restructuring news.
• Devolver Digital: Doing its own event focused on a game called Ball X Pit.
• Dotemu: Known for reviving classic series, but just announced an original game
• Dreamhaven: Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new publisher.
• Enhance: Known for cool experimental games.
• Focus Entertainment: Just published RoadCraft.
• Frontier: Maker of Planet Coaster 2 and Elite Dangerous.
• Funcom: About to launch Dune Awakening.
• iam8bit Presents: Publisher of collector's editions and other merch.
• Kakao Games: Publisher behind MMOs Chrono Odyssey and ArchAge Chronicles.
• Kinetic Games: Creator of Phasmophobia.
• Kuro Games: The company behind Wuthering Waves.
• Level Infinite: Studio making upcoming extraction shooter Exoborne.
• Magic the Gathering: There's a new Final Fantasy set.
• Megabit: A publisher with several upcoming games.
• Meta Quest: VR headsets and games.
• Mundfish: Atomic Heart developer.
• NCSoft: Publisher of Guild Wars 2 and a number of other MMOs.
• Nekki: Promises "gun fu" in the upcoming Spine, which looks cool.
• Neowiz: Could be showing off the Lies of P DLC.
• Netmarble: Released a Game of Thrones game recently.
• Nexon: Vindictus: Defying Fate,is one of its upcoming games.
• Niantic: The Pokémon Go studio.
• Nintendo Switch 2: The new Switch launches June 5.
• Nuverse: Marvel Snap publisher.
• Playstack: Publisher of some excellent games, including Balatro.
• PlaySide: Its next game is Mouse: PI for Hire, an FPS in the style of 1930s cartoons.
• PM Studios: Has several upcoming games.
• Razer: Maker of the mouse I'm using.
• Supermassive Games: This'll be Directive 8020, which is out in October.
• Xsolla: This is a fintech company, so probably nothing exciting for us.
• Yacht Club Games: The Shovel Knight dev, whose next game is Mina The Hollower.

That's a hell of a lot of potential announcements and trailers, and doesn't include however many developers will be showing their games at SGF without sponsoring the event. For instance, we know to expect an "intense body horror" game called ILL (see a clip here).

We also know that beta access to Soulframe, the new game from the Warframe developer, will be given out via Twitch drops during the stream, so expect to hear about that. (Fun fact: It's not called Soulframe in China because there's a game developer who goes by the name Soulframe already.)

And finally, it wouldn't be a Summer Game Fest without Hideo Kojima. He'll be at the show, if there were any doubt. There's also a separate Death Stranding 2 stream on Sunday, which is also hosted by Keighley. The bond grows even stronger.

source https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sgf-2025-preview/