Kaser Focus: California knows how to party

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In case you hadn’t heard, we at GamesBeat had a little get-together this week. We had a hybrid Summit this week: One day in-person in Los Angeles, two days virtual. These last three days have been some of the most fun I’ve had since I started writing about video games eight years ago.

There’s a strong chance if I say too much about the conference I’m going to get sentimental. I’m talking paragraphs about how many cool people in the industry there are, about being able to be part of something like this after years of planning, about how, yes, I did in fact meet Reggie. So… let’s not do that, for the sake of dignity. Just take my word for it: It was great.

It’s probably a good thing that this week didn’t have a lot of huge game releases, because I would not have had time to play them. Luckily, there is one game in my library that saved my sanity this week: Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I’d had the game for a while, but had put it away, figuratively, while I made headway on Tiny Tina, Chinatown Detective Agency, Elden Ring, Ghostwire Tokyo… you know, the spring collection. But it turns out that a Kirby game on the Switch is the perfect thing to play on planes, in airport lobbies, while winding down in a strange hotel room.

Speaking of games, a few other things have happened in the industry. We’re getting Diablo Immortal and an Xbox/Bethesda showcase in June. Gameloft announced a cute game called Disney Dreamlight Valley, which I’m probably going to sink a few hours into. Oh, and we received confirmation that Skull & Bones is indeed real. On the other hand, Stray — one of the games I was looking forward to this year — is