Sony has announced PlayStation Showcase 2021, which will be broadcast on September 9 at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern / 9pm UK (that's September 10 at 6am AEST).
The event promises to offer a "sneak peek at the future of PS5, with updates from PlayStation Studios and industry-leading devs," and will last around 40 minutes. It will show off games releasing this holiday "and beyond".
📅 Save the date!
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) September 2, 2021
PlayStation Showcase 2021 broadcasts live next Thursday. Full details: https://t.co/SN76KFLspG pic.twitter.com/KuN93OMq2d
One thing you can count on not being part of the show is the (still officially untitled) PlayStation VR 2. The new headset, and its next-gen controllers, is reportedly due late next year, and a PS Blog post about the event makes clear it won't make an appearance in the showcase.
It's been a long wait for Sony to put out a summer event. PlayStation wasn't a part of E3 2021 and had only a limited presence at Gamescom this year. The company put out a State of Play broadcast in July, but didn't include any of its major studios' projects – presumably holding them back for this event.
It's not been a quiet summer for Sony, though. PlayStation has bought Returnal developer Housemarque and PC port specialist Nixxes, and sold a lot of PS5s. It's also seen criticism for its handling of smaller games, and made a major U-turn on shutting down the PS3 and PS Vita stores.
Sony's made no mention of specific games being shown at the event, but the "holiday and beyond" timing for games at the event means we could very well see Horizon: Forbidden West (recently delayed to February 2022) and God of War Ragnarok (also delayed to 2022). More speculatively, we could get word on The Last of Us Part 2's standalone multiplayer, or perhaps even the reported remake of the original Last of Us.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.