Summer Game Fest’s 2026 showcase seemed to cement a grim truth for western game-makers: Japanese studios are delivering more and more quality games hardcore players love than the west seems able to right now.
Chinese and Korean studios were almost as prominent at this showcase, but it was fitting that Capcom and Square bookended proceedings with Resident Evil Veronica and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. For the two-hour stretch of trailers in between, it was striking how few large western studios were even present here, let alone on the front-foot.
As the crowds filtered in for a 2pm start, smart-casual industry folk were naturally outnumbered by media, influencers and game fans adorned in Zelda, Halo and Witcher t-shirts. The front third of LA’s Dolby Theatre appeared to be roped off for said industry types, so the whooping came from the folks further back in the room – and whoop they did. Mostly for games made outside the US or Europe.
The gentleman in front of us had brought two kids along, and he played ubiquitous mobile puzzler Block Blast as everyone settled into their seats. What followed was certainly not suitable for his young charges; it’s worth remembering that when all this was happening at E3, there was an unspoken sense of duty here. The games business was showing the world that this medium is much more than gore, guns and violence. Nintendo’s presence certainly helped.
Summer Game Fest has no such concerns, and it shows: anyone outside of the games world looking to take its pulse by watching this show may be shocked by the level of gore on show here. Those kids might have a difficult time going to sleep tonight.
Host Geoff Keighley’s opening assertion that the “magic is back” stuck out a little – how long has the magic been gone, Geoff? It turns out he was referring to a revival of sorts in smaller scale hits that have broken out on Steam. While that is true to a point, it can’t paper over the gaping ruptures in the western console game-making business overall, and particularly evident in the day’s showcase.
A bar chart showing the number of new, original Steam games that sold over a million units in the last year felt a little like a throwback to the old E3 of sales projections and lines going up on graphs. Keighley even urged players to “get wishlisting” – it felt like Steam was really the default platform here, perhaps not surprisingly given that Sony and Xbox kept their crown jewels for their own showcases (Sony’s earlier in the week, Microsoft’s to follow on Sunday).
Keighley’s intro sought to position this event – and by extension the entire week of SGF-related showcases – as an answer of sorts to the industry’s discovery problem. But it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that, given the well-known expense of getting a trailer into this particular showcase.
Still, it did feel more like there was an editorial hand at play throughout a relentless two hours of game trailers. And in particular Keighley and his crew seem to have a growing understanding of what gets the players in the room excited: new, often Japanese-made games in big franchises they already know and love. Or ones made by familiar names. Picking out which games were fully-priced placements and which were chosen for impact and tonal reasons was a harder task than in previous years.
It’s pretty unscientific stuff, but a rough measure of crowd reaction saw the most excitement in the room for Veronica, FFVII, Platinum’s new game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, PlayStation auteur Ueda-san’s Gen Atlas, Gundam Rogue Orbit, Virtua Fighter Crossroads and Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation 2. So just the one entry here from a western game studio, for those keeping count.
Tupac’s appearance in another Japanese-made game, Stranger Than Heaven, got gasps, laughs and cheers in equal measure, as did Snoop Dogg’s in-person cameo. Palworld’s 1.0 update got a surprising level of support too, given that the game feels like it has already had its moment.
The reception for That’s No Moon’s Crossfire was good too, though the studio heads on stage briefly got a little too in the weeds when talking through the game’s cover system. A really great trailer for UK studio Maverick Games’ Clutch was perhaps lost on this crowd, and Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets’ 1666 Amsterdam promo got polite applause, but didn’t exactly take the roof off. Dropping a demo alongside this reveal got plentiful murmurs of approval, though.
The likes of Blood Message and Sword of Legends represented the growing China-made contingent in these events nicely, but didn’t do much to get the blood pumping. Though clearly the new Stellar Blade game from Shift Up did for many in the crowd.
Ben Starr’s appearance in the Fortnite section helped keep momentum going just when the crowd was getting a little tired, and skits for the new Saw game and the Among Us TV show were fun. An Eggstremely Hard Game was there for a little whimsy too, in between all the stabbings. And one person a few seats down from us genuinely lost their mind when The Wolf Among Us appeared. Good for them.
Ending on a fan favourite like Final Fantasy VII was wise, particularly after the grief Keighley and his team got for ending The Game Awards with the short-lived Highguard last year. So there was real excitement as the crowd filtered out of LA’s Dolby Theatre, even after two hours of truly headache-inducing bass.
It might well have played a little differently for those watching online, but in the room it felt like a successful day out for the videogame fans in attendance. Post-COVID, we’ve all learned that you don’t always have to be in the room where it happens to check the pulse of the business, but it does help.
