Despite initially committing to attend the newly reformatted E3 event as early as a month ago, game publishing giant Ubisoft has backed out of the 2023 iteration of the event and will host its own live event this June.
“While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we’ve made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction, and will be holding a Ubisoft Forward Live event on 12th June in Los Angeles,” an official Ubisoft spokesperson told Video Games Chronicle. “We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon.” This Ubisoft event will officially be held on the day before the start of E3 this year.
Ubisoft will no longer be attending the first physical, in-person E3 in four years, and the first E3 since the event has been taken over by ReedPop, the company behind events such as PAX, EGX, and Star Wars Celebration. Earlier this month, ReedPop promised that “AAA companies, in addition to indie darlings and tech and hardware firms” had committed to returning, but this was before Ubisoft reversed course.
According to VGC and ReedPop, the first two days of E3 2023 (beginning June 13) are “reserved exclusively” for businesses and companies as part of the revamped format, with the third and fourth days dedicated to consumers. Nintendo announced back in February that it would not be attending E3 this year. ReedPop will reportedly be releasing the full list of attending exhibitors during the lead-up to the event.
E3 2023 will miss out on having Ubisoft present a handful of upcoming titles at the expo, including the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed Mirage title set for a 2023 release. Other Ubisoft titles like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Skull and Bones are also expected to release this year and are likely to be featured at the Ubisoft Forward Live.
