The next free update to Animal Crossing: New Horizons adds several seasonal events and features previously spotted via data mining.
The April update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons will arrive on April 23. Headlining the patch is Nature Day, which, like the previous Bunny Day holiday, will transition from a daily event to one that lasts from April 23 through May 4. There will be a special promotion for Nook Miles+ members each day, with limited-time Nature Day tasks to complete, including planting shrubs.
[Announcement] More good times await in #AnimalCrossing: New Horizons, starting with the free April update landing on your island 4/23! Check out new seasonal events like Nature Day, two new merchants: Leif & Redd, and the addition of an art gallery to the museum! #ACNH pic.twitter.com/aXQNZbzprF
— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) April 21, 2020
Several shopkeepers also make their way into New Horizons via the update, including the nature-loving sloth Leif, who will sell players flowers and bushes to plant. Arriving on a ship called the Treasure Trawler is Redd, the mysterious fox that has legit and forged art and rare furniture available for purchase.
The museum will be updated to support artwork by adding a new room for players to appreciate genuine paintings and sculptures the player donates. Fakes purchased from Redd are not welcome, of course. Museum owner Blathers will celebrate International Museum Day from May 16 through the end of the month with a stamp rally. Players can get rewards for exploring the museum and collecting stamps based on different types of displays, such as fish found on the coral reef.
Two other seasonal events are also on the way. May Day kicks off next month until May 7 and allows villagers to fly to a unique island where series mainstay Rover can be found. What will happen on the limited-time tour is unknown, but a video shows a maze littered with items to collect. Meanwhile, the entirety of June will see Wedding Season commence. Players can help arrange wedding anniversary photos on Harvey’s island. Reese and Cyrus, the llamas that owned the Re-Tail store in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, are shown off here, though there’s no word if Re-Tail makes a reappearance.
Many of the soon-to-be added features included in April’s update were initially revealed through analyzing code found in previous updates. While not officially confirmed, it appears that additional renovations to the museum, including Brewster’s Café, are in development, along with a farming system that will allow players to grow vegetables for the first time. It’s possible that these additions will arrive in a future update for New Horizons.
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.