Yet another change is here for the Game Developers Conference. The replacement event, GDC Summer, is still happening from August 4 to 6, but it will be online-only. The summer conference was originally planned as an in-person event like GDC typically is. However, the current state of the world is changing that once again.
Initially scheduled for earlier this year, March 16 through 20, the Game Developers Conference 2020 postponed after the coronavirus pandemic changed the entire video game industry. This included a string of major game publishers like Activision, Epic Games, Microsoft, and more working remotely. Many of those leading game publishers pulled out of GDC entirely, as well. And it wasn’t long after that that GDC formally moved its live showing to the summer.
However, the video game industry continues its shift to remote work months after the initial postponement as the coronavirus remains a global issue. GDC Summer is embracing this method of interaction by adapting its format to meet everyone where they are without the need for a physical event in San Francisco.
Despite the shift, plans are still in place to ensure that it will deliver the same “high-quality content and networking opportunities” that developers expect from GDC, according to the official website.
However, GDC already held a digital event in March, when it was initially scheduled to take place. Various talks took place ranging from a deep dive into ray tracing for Minecraft to how The Witcher 3 came to Nintendo Switch.
Many streams of those discussions are available online, so it’s unclear how GDC Summer will differ, especially since there is typically only one GDC event per year. This is also the first time in the conference’s 32 year history that there is no in-person meeting will take place.
With the future of the game industry unknown at this time, it is understandable to move the summer replacement event to an online format. More information regarding GDC Summer and how the event will work online is to come in the next few months. This is far from the first event to be affected by coronavirus.
E3 was also canceled in the wake of the pandemic with some publishers announcing separate digital events instead. Microsoft, in particular, will only host digital Xbox Series X events through at least July 2021.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”