E3 2021 Announces Its Own Awards Show

E3 2021 organizer the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) today announced that it would host its very own awards show this year called — aptly enough — the Official E3 2021 Awards Show. The awards show will take place on the final day of E3 2021’s broadcast, June 15th, and will hand out “Most Anticipated” awards to publishers and developers with a panel of editors from IGN, GameSpot, PC Gamer, and GamesRadar+ deciding the winners. E3 2021 itself is set to take place online from June 12th through June 15th.

“For this year’s event, we are collaborating with editors at some of the world’s leading video game media outlets to create the Official E3 2021 Awards Show, recognizing the show’s most anticipated games,” said Stanley Pierre-Louis, ESA President and CEO, as part of today’s announcement. “The broadcast is going to be packed with exciting announcements and reveals, and celebrating innovative publishers and developers is an ideal way to close E3 2021.”

More specifically, the media panel will select an overall “Most Anticipated” video game of E3 2021 as well as “recognizing” the “Most Anticipated” video games from participants. What that looks like remains to be seen, though the announcement makes it sound like that is the only real award being handed out. Contrary to something like Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, it would appear that E3 is treating the awards show as purely that and saving the various announcements and reveals for the show proper.

As noted above, E3 2021 is set to take place online from June 12th through June 15th. That includes streaming press conferences in addition to a four-day video stream. The live broadcast will be hosted by Greg Miller, Jacki Jing, and Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez and will include press conferences, game reveals and announcements, developer interviews, panels, and more. You can check out all of our previous coverage of E3 right here.

What do you think about the new awards set to be part of E3 2021? Are you excited to see how E3 handles the online event this year? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!