E3 might be going all virtual this year, but there are still some E3 traditions we can bank on—including Nintendo holding its press conference on Tuesday morning, on the first official day of the show. Today Nintendo confirmed that its E3 press conference will appear in the form of the latest Nintendo Direct, streaming live on Nintendo’s web site on Tuesday, June 15, at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET. Immediately afterward, Nintendo will be offering a closer look at some of its upcoming games in the latest Nintendo Treehouse: Live.
Nintendo promises “roughly 40 minutes” of news on upcoming Switch games during this Direct, and given this is the company’s official E3 presentation, expect some new announcements and unexpected bombshells. It’d be a surprise if Breath of the Wild 2, Splatoon 3, and more Smash Bros. and Animal Crossing updates aren’t on the docket. Perhaps we’ll get an update on Metroid Prime 4, which was announced all the way back in 2017, but hasn’t been officially commented on since 2019. Or maybe Nintendo will be reviving another one of its beloved series of yore; if you spend any amount of time on videogame Twitter you no doubt see that “what Nintendo franchise would YOU reboot?” meme a few dozen times a week. (Maybe a gritty new take on Gumshoe, if we’re lucky?)
We don’t know what specifically to expect from this E3 installment of Nintendo Direct, but one thing we are sure of is that people will complain no matter what it is. That is the way of the world today.
So mark it down: Tuesday, June 15, noon ET (9 a.m. PT), at this website. (And, yes, presumably on YouTube, as well.) It’s the customary way to start the first official day of E3, and although this year won’t see tens of thousands of people sweating together in a massive convention center, swapping their sicknesses back and forth in a massive science experiment (I literally got hand, foot and mouth disease last time I went to E3), at least we can count on Nintendo to kick the whole thing off. You know, kicking it off after two or three days of other press conferences from other companies.
Stay tuned to Paste in a couple of weeks for whatever E3 coverage we feel like doing.