E3 is gone—may it rest in peace—but although the games industry no longer crams itself into the LA Convention Center every June, we’re not at all short on events. The year ahead is packed with showcases, esports tournaments, conventions, and fan gatherings, some new, some that have been going for decades.
Dates haven’t been announced for all of 2024’s events—we’ll update this article with specifics and new events as they’re announced.
January
CES | January 9-12 | Las Vegas
The biggest trade show for consumer tech. We’ll be there covering all the PC gaming peripherals, chips, and gadgets on display—follow our coverage here.
Annual speedrunning charity marathon. Check the streaming schedule here.
20-year-old trade show and exhibition in Taiwan. We’ll be looking out for new details on upcoming games—the show included a big Elden Ring video feature in 2022, for instance.
IEM Katowice (CS2 tournament) | Jan 31-Feb 11 | Katowice
The first of two ESL Pro Tour Championship finals this year. See the full schedule of 2024 IEM Counter-Strike 2 events here.
February
The biggest Rainbow Six: Siege event of the year will be hosted in Brazil for the first time.
A major industry networking event (not to be confused with Swedish developer DICE, maker of the Battlefield games). Includes the D.I.C.E Awards.
March
SXSW 2024 | March 8-16 | Austin
The famous South-by-Southwest arts festival is primarily focused on music, film, TV, and comedy, but includes some interactive arts and entertainment talks.
Steam Spring Sale | March 14-21 | Steam
The first big Steam seasonal sale of the year is usually a good opportunity to pick up some of last year’s best games at a small or sometimes substantial discount. Baldur’s Gate 3 was discounted for the first time in Steam’s 2023 Winter Sale, so it’s a good bet it’ll get another discount here. See all the known upcoming Steam sale dates here.
The first of two Counter-Strike 2 PGL Majors this year will take place in Denmark.
GDC 2024 | March 18-22 | San Francisco
The Game Developers Conference is one of our favorite events of the year at PC Gamer: an opportunity for us to share what game developers are talking about with each other, and to chat with them in-person about their work and the business. See, for example, our roundtable discussion with five veteran RPG designers from last year’s GDC.
PAX East | March 21-24 | Boston
The east coast edition of the long-running gaming fan convention, with panels, expo booths, a big tabletop gaming space, and a PC LAN area.
April
The Australian stop on the yearly, worldwide tour of DreamHack events, which feature esports, a cosplay competition, and LAN gaming. Last year’s was in Melbourne, but a specific venue for this year hasn’t been announced.
May
The Texas stop on the DreamHack tour will be “bigger than ever” according to the organizers of the annual esports, cosplay, and LAN event.
June
Film festival that has expanded to include interactive art.
DreamHack’s mid-year event takes place in Jönköping, Sweden.
Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest has so far comprised a big livestreamed showcase and a physical event for press—smaller than E3, but something—and is also used as an umbrella term to refer to the many livestreamed showcases that are still scattered throughout June.
Specifics on who’s putting on shows and when haven’t been announced yet, but the usual June lineup includes:
- The PC Gaming Show (that’s us!)
- Xbox and Bethesda Showcase (now with Activision Blizzard)
- Ubisoft Forward
- EA Play Live (EA has skipped the past couple years)
- PlayStation Showcase (this was in May last year)
- Capcom Showcase
- Nintendo Direct
- Future Games Show
- Day of the Devs
- Devolver Digital
- Wholesome Games
- Guerrilla Collective
A new Latin American Gamescom offshoot that has merged with the BIG Festival, an important independent games-focused event we attended in 2022.
Steam Summer Sale | June 27-July 11 | Steam
The second of Steam’s seasonal sales is usually one of the biggest. See all the known upcoming Steam sale dates here.
July
TennoCon 2024 | July 19-20 | London, Ontario
The yearly Warframe fan convention put on by developer Digital Extremes.
A Japanese independent games festival that started in 2012.
Comic-Con | July 25-28 | San Diego
An enormous fan event covering comic books, films, and games. Reliably a source for movie news, and sometimes for tidbits about upcoming superhero games.
SIGGRAPH 2024 | July 28-August 1 | Denver
Computer graphics and simulation developers get together to share their techniques, work, and research. Lots of cool tech demos to watch.
August
Gen Con | August 1-4 | Indianapolis
A huge tabletop gaming gathering that was founded by Gary Gygax himself.
QuakeCon | Dates TBA | Texas
Last year’s id Software-centric fan event brought back the in-person LAN party in Grapevine, Texas. Dates for the 2024 event haven’t been announced, but 2023’s gathering started on August 10. During last year’s QuakeCon, id Software announced and released the Quake 2 remaster.
IEM Cologne 2024 (CS2 tournament) | August 16-18 | Cologne
Finals of the year’s second ESL Pro Tour Championship.
For a few years running, Europe’s huge gaming trade show has kicked off with a Geoff Keigley-hosted livestream called Opening Night Live. Expect at least a couple major announcements during that showcase, and we typically attend the physical event for hands-on demos and developer interviews.
PAX West | August 30-September 2 | Seattle
Long-running fan convention featuring a big expo hall, panels, performers, and PC and tabletop gaming areas.
The conclusion of the 2024 Valorant Champions Tour. Specifics haven’t been announced yet, but you can find more on Riot’s 2024 Valorant esports plans in its 2023 end of year letter.
September
One of the year’s major industry events, TGS will include news and showcases from Japanese game studios, as well as publishers and developers from around the world.
October
The second-to-last DreamHack expo of the year will take place in Georgia.
PAX Aus | dates TBA | Melbourne
PAX’s Australia event is returning in 2024—no dates have been announced, but last year’s started on October 6.
The New York version of Comic-Con. Like the San Diego event, expect a few bits of news on comic-based and comic-adjacent games.
An offshoot of the German expo that will take place at Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore.
The International (Dota 2 tournament) | Date TBA | Location TBA
Valve hasn’t announced a date or venue for this year’s big Dota 2 finals. Last year’s event took place at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena in late October.
TwitchCon | Dates TBA | Locations TBA
Twitch put on two events last year, one in Paris in July and another in Las Vegas in October. Locations and dates for 2024’s events haven’t been announced yet.
November
Blizzard’s big annual fan event, with announcements and esports. Last year’s BlizzCon was in early November, and this year’s should be around the same time.
The conclusion to this year’s LoL esports season.
Conclusion to a year-long Counter-Strike 2 tournament series.
The final DreamHack event of the year.
December
The year’s second Counter-Strike Major will take place in China.
Geoff Keighley’s annual awards show is about big reveals as much as it is awards. Last year we got our first look at Hello Games’ next big project, a teaser for Kojima’s horror collab with Jordan Peele, and dozens of other trailers—we compiled them all here.
www.pcgamer.com