Summer Games Fest – Overwatch, MW 2, Riot Games and Esports

While we didn’t get a traditional E3 again this year, Summer Games Fest has become a decent replacement for the show. The Show Games Fest saw all the major developers and publishers holding conferences to announce their plans for the year ahead.

While big AAA titles grabbed a lot of attention, there was plenty of esports news over the weekend. These are all of the important Summer Games Fest announcements from the world of esports.

Screengrab from Xbox + Riot Showcase

Summer Games Show

Riot Games Come to Game Pass

One unexpected announcement at Summer games Fest was that Riot Games is bringing their roster of popular esports titles to Game Pass. That’s alongside most of the paid content in these titles too. These are the titles that’ll be joining the streaming service:

• League of Legends
• Valorant
• Teamfight Tactics
• League of Legends Wild Rift
• Legends of Runeterra

New agent unlocks, Battle Passes, and playable champions are all going to be bundled in with these versions of games. Essentially, players will get everything the game has to offer, despite the normal higher price of unlocking everything. This definitely makes Game Pass a good deal for these, including all Playable characters and other bonuses in these games will give newcomers from Gamespass a big boost starting a game out.

The caveat is that all of these unlocks go away from your accounts if you stop subscribing. Only the content you manually unlock will remain.

Overwatch 2 at Summer Games Fest

One of the biggest drops of news over the Summer Games Fest was Overwatch 2. Compared to the previous trailers, we might have gotten our biggest info dump in the short trailer over the weekend.

There are new heroes, maps, changes, and finally a release date. Overwatch 2 will be entering a wide early access on October 4th. This early access will be for both console and PC. The game will also become free to play, moving away from the model they used for Overwatch 1.

The trailer revealed a lot about Junker Queen, a new tank coming to the game. There were also glimpses at new looks for a number of Heroes too. More details on Overwatch 2 are going to be coming on June 16^th with an Overwatch 2 reveal event.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 News at Summer Games Fest

The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 reveal has been expanded, and even more got showed off at Summer Games Fest 2022. This game could mean big changes for the CoD esports scene. The reveal this time was largely campaign missions though.

Street Fighter 6

Coming hot off the reveal for Street Fighter 6, we’ve got fresh details of characters for the game.

The Summer Games Show announcement showcased Guile:

Street Fighter 6 is having more and more of its roster and moves revealed. The game looks set to be a fun change for the series when it launches. Another major difference announced is characters getting specific taunts in each match. The taunts have been said to be ‘targeted’ which will help to make interactions more unique between players and characters.

In terms of gameplay and flow, we are yet to test and see how the game feels.

Fortnite FNCS Invitational Trailed at Summer Games Fest

Part of Epic’s presentation at the Summer Games Show was the reveal of a Fortnite Invitational event taking place this winter. The event had been previously announced, but we got a full reveal trailer this time. The tournament is going to be the year’s in-person invitational, finding the best Fortnite players from across the FNCS’ played in 2022.

Stormgate

Stormgate rounds off the esports-specific announcements with a game that looks like it has a lot of potential. Blizzard’s RTS games have had a big esports impact in the past. Stormgate is a spiritual successor to a lot of those titles, particularly Starcraft. Former devs from Blizzard have come back together to create this RTS strategy game. While a lot of players wonder if Starcraft is dead, a spiritual successor might give lapsed players something new.

That’s all of the major announcements for esports games at the Summer Games fest, but there were loads more titles announced and revealed. The event focused on non-competitive games, but across these big titles, we’ve seen a lot of news. From the biggest epsorts titles all hitting Game Pass to Overwatch’s sequel going free to play, it looks like competitive games will be more accessible than ever.