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Soon, E3 2019 will be upon us. For those of us into games, this marks one of the biggest weeks of the year, with announcements constantly flooding in.
E3 is one of the largest conventions where the people who make games take to the stage to impress us with their upcoming wares. Some of the biggest gaming news of the year is about to hit us but what might this mean for esports?
Well, that all depends on the esport. If you’re a fan of any of Blizzard’s offerings like StarCraft, Overwatch, or competitive World of Warcraft – probably not much. Blizzard tends to keep things to their very own Blizzcon, which won’t be until November.
However, we have seen some rumours circling that Blizzard is working on Overwatch 2, which may be mostly PvE, and Diablo 4. Reports have also said the company has stopped working on a StarCraft FPS to focus on these other projects – but again, it’s likely we’ll need to wait to November to hear more about any of these juicy notions.
On the other hand, there’s good news you’re more of a Nintendo esport fan. The Japanese gaming company is holding several tournaments during the event. They’ll start bright and early on June 9 at 4am (AEST).
First up there’s the Super Mario Maker 2 Invitational. This is a bit of an odd one and will pit four players against each other in a few different rounds of competition. It looks like it’s going to feature a bunch of crazy platforming speedrunner action if that’s your thing.
Next up, you can catch the Splatoon 2 World Championship which will even feature Australian and New Zealand champions Lime Soda. Splatoon 2 is a highly underrated esport which is super fun to watch and play. It might even be worth getting up this early to watch.
This is followed by the Super Smash Bros Ultimate World Champion 3-vs-3. We’ve got several players in the mix such as Ghost, SebPro101, Ichigo and PillowTalk and you can catch all of these competitions on Nintendo’s E3 2019 website.
Nintendo won’t be delivering it’s E3 presentation until 2am (AEST) on Wednesday, June 12 – so you’ll have to wait until then for any news.
Officially, the company is going to focus on games to launch this year but there might be some tidbits about the ongoing life of some of the already popular esports titles. If not, stay tuned for the Treehouse event which follows – this often goes into more detail about things that might not be big enough to feature in the main event.
Another company whose presentation I think is worth checking out for esports fans is EA. The EA Play conference starts at 2:15am on June 9. The company has dedicated slots to Apex Legends, Battlefield V, FIFA 20, and Madden NFL 20 – all of which have esports scenes. Furthermore, some of these are being hosted by Alex “Goldenboy” Mandez who’s a pretty big name in the esports scene, so there’s a good chance we’re going to hear some competitive news.
The last show I recommend for esports fans is the PC Gaming Show, which starts at 3am on June 11. This can often be a bit of an odd one to watch and you’ll see a lot of games you’ve never heard of crop up. It’s also where you’re most likely to see any other esports news, simply because it’s on PC.
Epic Games, better known as the creators of Fortnite are also in the list of companies they’re planning to feature. One of the hosts this year is also another esports name Sean “Day[9]” Plott which helps me think there might be the odd esport announcement during this show.
There are plenty of other shows throughout E3 that are absolutely worth checking out if your interest dips slightly beyond competitive gaming. It’s the time of year where gamers crowd around their TVs eager to hear what’s new and exciting for our world.
Even if you’re new to the scene there’s a buzz that surrounds the event and watching along with the rest of the world is a lot of fun.
I recommend waking up (often hideously) early, getting all rugged up and sitting down with some snacks to catch as much of the latest news live as you can stomach. It’s a nice look into where games are headed and the culture they build.
Regardless of what you manage to catch, I’ll be here to wrap up the esports news next week in case you missed it.