The big gaming showcases this week – and where to watch them
Key Points
- The PlayStation State of Play on June 2 runs 60 to 90 minutes and confirms Marvel's Wolverine, with several rumoured PS5 exclusives expected.
- Summer Game Fest Opening Night Live airs June 5 at 10pm BST, hosted by Geoff Keighley, opening a run of showcases through June 8.
- The Xbox Games Showcase on June 7 at 6pm BST leads with Gears of War: E-Day and a follow-up E-Day Direct, plus expected Fable and Halo updates.
- A Summer Nintendo Direct is unconfirmed but widely expected in mid June.
- All four stream free on the publishers' official YouTube channels.
Sony, Geoff Keighley, Microsoft and Nintendo headline four gaming showcases running from the start of June, with Marvel’s Wolverine, the Summer Game Fest Opening Night Live, Gears of War: E-Day and a rumoured Nintendo Direct the biggest draws.
The summer showcase season opens with the PlayStation State of Play on Tuesday (2 June), streaming live at 10pm BST.
This is a longer broadcast than usual, with a confirmed runtime of over 60 minutes, and theatre listings for the Sony screening events suggest the presentation could run as long as 90 minutes, making it one of the lengthiest State of Play shows ever.
The only title Sony has officially confirmed is Marvel’s Wolverine from Insomniac Games, which arrives ahead of its 15 September 2026 release.
Fans are also expecting possible looks at Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Capcom’s Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Ember Lab’s Kena: Scars of Kosmora, alongside rumours of a new God of War project focused on Faye, though none of these are confirmed.
You can watch on the official PlayStation YouTube channel.
Summer Game Fest
Summer Game Fest follows on Thursday, (5 June) with the Opening Night Live broadcast hosted by Geoff Keighley and Lucy James live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
The stream begins at 10pm BST and runs for around two hours, opening a multi-day run of showcases that continues through to 8 June.
This is the season’s biggest catch-all event, built on world premieres of unannounced games plus gameplay footage and updates from leading studios and indie developers.
You can watch on the Summer Game Fest channels via The Game Awards on YouTube.
Xbox showcase
The Xbox Games Showcase airs on Sunday (7 June), starting at 6 pm UK time, and it will be followed immediately by a Gears of War: E-Day Direct from The Coalition.
The main show is expected to run for about an hour.
.Beyond the confirmed Gears of War: E-Day, Matt Booty has confirmed another look at Fable, which has been delayed to February 2027, and updates on Halo: Campaign Evolved and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 are also expected.
One thing to rule out is hardware news, with Booty stating the showcase will focus on games rather than the next generation Project Helix system.
The broadcast streams in over 40 languages, including American Sign Language and British Sign Language, on the official Xbox YouTube channel.
What’s Nintendo doing?
The Summer Nintendo Direct is the one to keep loosely pencilled in.
Nintendo has not announced a date, but the next Direct is expected in mid June, around or just after Summer Game Fest week, following a consistent pattern of June showcases, with industry figure Jeff Grubb also pointing to mid June.
No general Nintendo Directs have run so far in 2026, and the company does not currently have any games dated beyond July, which adds weight to the case for a broadcast.
Rumours range from an Ocarina of Time remake to the next 3D Mario, though all of it is unconfirmed.
When (if) it lands, it will stream on the official Nintendo YouTube channel.
