With the unfortunate passing of E3, gamers now turn to a week or so of scattered, individual company-run press conferences intermixed with Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest and a slew of conferences that you’ve never heard of in an event we now lovingly refer to as “Not-E3.”

Although the schedule for this year’s Not-E3 is jam-packed and the amount of genuinely exciting titles from these new showcases is anything but, we can still look forward to a number of announcements that will tide us over until they are inevitably delayed.

And here are five announcements I’m hoping for from this year’s conferences.

Guarantees for Ethical Use of AI

One of gaming’s most anticipated titles, coming at us from the developers of the hit Second Gilded Age and spin-off A Nationwide Recession, is Generative AI which is said to be able to create art as effectively, if not more so, than humans just as long as you like things that are dumb and meaningless.

But a big question mark surrounding the new title is whether it’s just going to be used in a way that can massively overhaul and streamline game development to create more impactful pieces of art by automating the tedium away from developers, or if it’s going to result in a bunch of shit that no one wants like an even greater number of layoffs or higher-ups at Ubisoft stating out loud that they’re only capable of managing robots.

Generative AI already has a release date, locked in for way sooner than humans are ready for, but we’ll let you know if the Ethics update gets one as well.

Support for the Unionization of Games Developers

A reboot for Working at the Whim of Billionaires, with a proposed working title of Unions, has been leaked through direct announcements for quite a while now, and we couldn’t be more excited for it.

But unfortunately, the title has been stuck in development, or, more aptly, publishing hell for several years now. Companies like Activision Blizzard seem to have taken questionable steps to withhold the title for a more corporately opportune release window, despite reports that Unions has already gone gold.

We look forward to the inevitable release of Unions and will keep you updated on any news.

Steps Being Taken to Address the On-Going Crunch Crisis

Though Gaming companies have been very communicative about things like how Unions would damage the quality of developer life, they’ve been surprisingly tight-lipped about its long rumored sequel Crunch Crisis: Genuine Attempts at Solutions and we just can’t seem to figure out why.

Although its predecessor, Crunch Crisis, wasn’t received particularly well, its sequel is said to solve a lot of the issues of the previous game.

Some of the most highly requested features are the elimination of the “Holding Life Changing Amounts of Money Hostage for Metacritic Scores” system, a new mechanic where games aren’t announced far before they’re ready, and a new feature that acknowledges that Crunch actually lowers output from developers across every metric and is a fundamentally ineffective way of working.

We’ll let you know if we get any word on this one, but as every Publisher in the industry has been communicating for decades now, don’t get your hopes up.

Commitments Towards Decent PC Ports

Though many games have tried, games like Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Redfall, Wild Hearts, Forspoken, and The Last of Us: Part I in just this year alone, none have truly been able to fill the hole left by one of my all time favorite gaming franchises; Decent PC Ports.

We haven’t had a truly great entry into the iconic franchise since… I literally cannot remember when. And the gaming community is starting to communicate, quite subtly, that it might be time for a proper sequel in the long bereft franchise.

I’m hopeful for a release date on even one good PC Port from the showcases this year, but no word yet.

Honorable Mention

Outlets Breaking the Toxic News Cycle of Game Announcements.

Though the focus of this article is more centered on the release of Triple-A Games, we would be remiss to not mention this more indie title.

Since time immemorial, gaming outlets have voiced their disappointment with games not setting hard release dates or announcing delays, despite the fact that they also lambast those same games if they release before they are entirely ready.

Articles like these, articles about “Not-E3 Wishlists”, might be unknowingly participating in this toxic news cycle which can damage the very games we want to play by creating more pressure on them to release.

We hope that collectively we can start enjoying what we are shown without cranking up the heat on the already unfathomable pressure cooker that is Games Development.


And on that note.

Silksong Release Date

Developer Team Cherry announced the follow-up to Hollow Knight over four years ago and just won’t tell us when it’s coming out!

They obviously know and must be withholding this information from us with great malice aforethought, and we’re frankly sick of it.

Just tell us when it’s releasing! Finish the game faster!

DANCE MONKEYS DANCE!