A new report from VGC reveals Ubisoft has opted out of going to E3 2023.
Back in February, the French developer confirmed it would attend the event. At the time, Ubisoft was notably one of the few high-profile developers that said it would be going, as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all stated (or reaffirmed) they wouldn’t be showing up.
Speaking to VGC, a Ubisoft spokesperson explained that the developer chose to “move in a different direction.” The developer will hold its own Ubisoft Forward event in Los Angeles on June 12, a day before E3 2023 officially starts.
“While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we’ve made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction,” wrote Ubisoft. “We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon.”
Ubisoft’s departure is another blow to E3’s attempted comeback
E3’s new organizer ReedPop announced in late 2022 that the annual game showcase would return for 2023, and would be its first in-person show since the pandemic hit. Over the years, developers have made a habit of launching their own showcases to reveal their games, either in June or just every few months.
It’s worth noting that these struggles aren’t really new for E3. Before the pandemic, the event took a notable blow when Sony opted out of attending starting in 2019, a move mimicked by EA that same year.
More recently, Microsoft launched its first ever developer showcase this past January to highlight incoming games like Redfall and Minecraft Legends. It plans on doing a similar event for Starfield ahead of its September release, which will hit on June 11…aka, the day before E3 2023 starts.
The launch of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest in 2020 also hasn’t helped E3’s standing. That digital showcase is expected to hit on June 8, just days before the revamped E3 2023.
At time of writing, E3 2023 is still on track to run from June 13 to June 16.