Summer Game Fest 2025 officially launched on June 6 with a two‑hour, star‑studded main showcase at L.A.’s YouTube Theater. Hosted by Geoff Keighley, this flagship stream featured world‑premiere trailers, developer interviews, surprise guests like Hideo Kojima and a pulse‑quickening pace designed to captivate both live and digital audiences. It aired across multiple livestreaming platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, and Kick.
While the Summer Game Fest weekend spanned June 6-9 with Play Days, Day of the Devs, and regional showcases, it's this June 6 broadcast that truly towered above them all. While the indie-focused “Day of the Devs” and other partner showcases followed across the weekend, it was the June 6 flagship that captured the spotlight, becoming the month’s most-watched gaming showcase and the de facto centerpiece of the SGF lineup.
Content was rich and diverse, with over 50 game unveilings spanning AAA franchises, nostalgic remakes, and inventive indie projects. Major reveals included Resident Evil: Requiem, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Code Vein II, Atomic Heart 2, Dying Light: The Beast, and Mortal Shell II. Indie highlights like Scott Pilgrim EX, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (featuring Hatsune Miku), and innovative newcomers like Blighted and The Cube offered a wide thematic and stylistic range.
Summer Game Fest’s record-breaking viewership was no accident: as one of the year’s major gaming festivals, it wasn’t just another online trailer reel. Backed by Geoff Keighley’s reputation and amplified by the same high-profile channels that power The Game Awards, SGF enjoyed wide coverage from every major gaming outlet. On top of that, more than 1,300 community co-streamers, ranging from variety broadcasters to Japanese VTubers, picked up the feed live.
Gaming showcases of June 2-8, 2025 rankings
When the June 6 flagship stream peaked, it drew over 3 million live viewers across an array of platforms, making it not only the most-watched Summer Game Fest ever but nearly twice the size of last year’s audience and about 1 million more than the previous record-holder from 2023. The Game Awards’ own YouTube channel anchored the viewership, but the rest of the audience was remarkably well distributed among community and influencer channels, highlighting how SGF’s festival-style format translated into grassroots buzz.
Even among its immediate summer peers, SGF stood head and shoulders above the rest. The closest contender was the Xbox Games Showcase, containing big-ticket reveals like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and The Outer Worlds 2, but it couldn’t match SGF’s live peak.
Zooming out to the entire week, three of the top five peak audiences of 2025 came from that weekend’s showcases, bumping long-standing events like Pokémon Day down the list. Summer Game Fest itself claimed second place for peak viewership this year; only the Nintendo Direct event announcing the Switch 2 snagged more eyes, a title it looks set to hold for the foreseeable future.
All in all, Summer Game Fest 2025 confirmed its status as one of the most important events on the gaming calendar. The showcase stood out not just for what it revealed, but for how effectively it reached players across platforms and communities. It’s a clear sign that SGF’s role in the summer gaming season is only growing stronger.
