It wouldn’t be a Call of Duty launch without conversations about large file sizes, but Activision is looking to address those issues with a series of updates over the next few months. One of the biggest involves decoupling the free-to-play Warzone from the main game, which will help to make Black Ops 6 smaller than Modern Warfare 3, according to the publisher.
While Activision hasn’t revealed game file size just yet, these new changes will be implemented starting on August 21 with Season 5 Reloaded. In a blog post published Thursday, Activision developers laid out plans to streamline textures and to encourage users to download early, but making Warzone a separate download by default will be the most impactful on file sizes. Warzone is a battle royale that’s a separate, free-to-play game, so there’s no reason to keep it tied with the latest Call of Duty main release. It’ll be available to install at any time, and players can opt to download it with Black Ops 6.
Developers will also be rolling out new streamlined texture streaming that Activision says will cycle out older assets and content players might not use into a cache that’s not stored directly on their device. This does mean graphics might be lower quality, but a new setting called On-Demand High Quality Streaming will allow player to bypass it.
There are other planned updates being rolled out before launch, including one in mid-October that will feature a new UI. To make this all a lot easier, Activision is encouraging players to download these updates early. This process will be slightly different for PlayStation 5 players, who will get this update through four downloads.
This is great news for players who wanted to hop into one of the two beta periods. There’s one for early access from August 30-September 4, and another public open beta from September 6-9. The game is set to launch on October 25 across PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC, and will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass.
It’ll also hopefully put fears to rest that Black Ops 6 would be massive. People noticed in June that the Xbox store page listed the game as requiring a whopping 309.85GB download, which Activision had to clarify took into account Modern Warfare 2 and 3, along with Warzone and all the content packs. For reference, Modern Warfare 3 was 149GB at launch for the whole package.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.