Bethesda won’t have a digital showcase in June to fill E3’s void

The publisher is facing ‘many challenges’ due to the pandemic

We won’t get to read another “Everything that happened at Bethesda’s E3 press conference” recap. (Would it have been merely “okay,” like 2019? Or “mostly Fallout-based,” like 2018? We’ll never know!)

Speaking on Twitter, Bethesda’s Pete Hines said that the company “will not host a digital Showcase in June” like it has in prior years “given the many challenges we’re facing due to the pandemic.”

It seems like that goes without saying at this point – E3 2020 isn’t happening due to COVID-19 – but there’s been this expectation that the larger video game publishers would still organize their own individual streaming-only events in June (or thereabouts) to compensate for the missing expo.

Even though Bethesda is skipping its June routine, the teams still “have lots of exciting things to share about our games and look forward to telling you more in the coming months,” according to Hines.

I’m sure we’ll see big gaming news elsewhere in June – it’s such a long-held tradition – but things won’t be the same this year, and it’s tough to imagine 2021 will simply “go back to the way things were.”

I’d typically be stoked to have the Sunday before E3 free to myself, but not like this.