It’s not quite time for the expo to return yet.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, many major events and gatherings have been forced to either take their operations digital or cancel them altogether. One of these is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as E3. E3 was cancelled outright in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns, and in 2021 was a completely-online affair. This year, with COVID cases on the decline and vaccines successfully proliferating, E3 was planned to be back in force as an in-person event, though this was walked back in January to an online-only event.
However, for reasons that have not yet been specified, it seems the event has been cancelled outright. According to Will Powers, PR head for gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer, the company received an email last night that the event has been cancelled entirely, with neither in-person nor online events planned.
BREAKING: E3 will not hold a physical or digital show in 2022. https://t.co/ePDSoVUVoN pic.twitter.com/tYpHjQII8P
— IGN (@IGN) March 31, 2022
According to Stephen Totilo of Axios, the ESA, the organizing body behind E3, is planning on bringing the event back in full in 2023 as a hybrid in-person and online affair. For the time being, though, all of the major game publishers will probably employ the same options utilized in the last few years: hosting their own presentations independent of one another around the time E3 would usually be.