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The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley has announced he’s teaming up with the producers of E3 to bring two days of panels, talks, presentations "and other surprises" to this year’s show at The Novo on Tuesday June 13th and Wednesday June 14th.
The E3 Coliseum has been in the works for the last six months, Keighley said on his blog, and will feature presentations from "all the major game teams" in the business. So far, Keighley’s confirmed that Activision, Bethesda, Gearbox, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros and Xbox will all be participating in panels, and more developers and "some very special guests from the broader entertainment world" will be announced in the coming weeks.
Keighley added: "They’ll join us to speak about the cultural significance of gaming and how this incredible medium has influenced their work. Lots of surprises in store here."
The two days will be livestreamed around the world for those who can’t attend in person, and fans will be able to ask questions via Facebook.
"Sometimes I get jaded and forgot how cool it is that E3 will be open to the public for the first time this year," said Keighley. "The E3 Coliseum will only make E3 more exciting to fans, as it create an opportunity to see the world’s top game creators and special guests live on stage.
"Stay tuned for more news soon on the games that will be there, but today we can tease that you will see major panels hosted by some of the world’s top game publishers including Activision, Bethesda Softworks, Gearbox Publishing, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Xbox, with more to be announced in the coming weeks. All these publishers understand that our industry is stronger when we unite at E3 to showcase the most powerful form of entertainment in the world."
E3 will be opening its doors to the public for the first time in its 22-year history this year – a decision which not all members of the UK games industry is pleased about – but more and more publishers are gradually ditching the show in favour of their own events. EA will once again be holding its ownEA Play presentation, and Oculus has also confirmed it won’t be having a booth this year. Likewise, Nintendo isn’t having a traditional press conference this year, either, although it’s not yet confirmed whether the platform holder will hold one of its Nintendo Direct broadcasts instead.
