Ubisoft won’t have any E3-style blowout this June

Ubisoft has confirmed it won’t have any presence during the June lineup of gaming events designed to fill the E3 void.

The publisher confirmed in a statement to Axios that it won’t have another announcement showcase until “later this year.” Ubisoft, of course, traditionally held in-person press conferences concurrent with E3, where it revealed big new games and provided updates on existing titles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company instead launched a series of webcasts, Ubisoft Forward, designed to serve the same purpose.

But we’ve now gone almost a full year without an Ubisoft Forward, and it sounds like we’ll be waiting until at least July for another plunge into the Ubi hype hole.

This isn’t the first year without an E3 event, of course, but the promotional schedule has been a bit thinner than in previous years, perhaps reflecting a thinner 2022 release schedule. EA confirmed months ago it won’t host its annual EA Play Live this summer. There’s a State of Play from PlayStation later today, but Sony is setting expectations low. Nintendo hasn’t said anything about a June Direct. And Microsoft delayed its two biggest 2022 games into next, year, so it’s unclear what it will have to show during its big showcase later this month.

Still, Ubisoft does have some big games (probably still) coming later this year or early next, including Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, and the long-awaited Skull & Bones. Odds are good the publisher will want to showcase its lineup in some form before too much longer.

How much longer, then, is the big question.