The next entry in the Assassin’s Creed series will not be released until 2017. According to Kotaku, the new game, codename: “Empire,” will be set in ancient Egypt.
According to sources close to the developer, Ubisoft delayed the 2016 entry in the series following the negative reaction to the Assassin’s Creed: Unity. One of two AC games released 2014 and the first for the current generation of consoles, Unity, was plagued by bugs and controversy and is widely considered a low-point for the franchise. Ubisoft believes that Unity’s technical shortcomings impacted the sales of this year’s much-improved Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate.
If accurate, the change will break Assassin’s Creed series’ long-standing annual schedule. Publisher Ubisoft has released at least one entry in the series every year since Assassin’s Creed II came out in 2009. The decision to push “Empire” to 2017 may not represent a delay, but a paradigm shift; Ubisoft is reportedly considering scaling back the franchise to release every other year.
Based on information from unnamed sources and rumors from a 4Chan message board, which have been reproduced on NeoGAF, this information is far from an official confirmation from Ubisoft. However, Kotaku has broken stories releasing the names and locales of the last two Assassin’s Creed titles, Unity and Syndicate (codename: “Victory”).
Regarding “Empire” itself, multiple sources reportedly suggested that, in addition to scoping out Egypt, a section of game set in ancient Rome may have been planned, but ultimately removed from the game. Rumor has it that “Empire” may kick off a new trilogy in the Assassin’s Creed universe following a single character in the ancient world, with a future game set in Rome or Greece.
Assassin’s Creed fans will still be able to get their fill of the franchise this year. Ubisoft will release two more side-scrolling Assassin’s Creed games in January and February, and the Assassin’s Creed movie, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, is slated to hit theaters December 21, 2016.
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.