Ubisoft quietly confirmed new details on Assassin’s Creed Infinity, a hub that’s set to launch alongside Assassin’s Creed Shadows, on the franchise’s official Reddit on Friday. It not only revealed that Animus Hub would be the official name, but that the rewards would be free.
The post was in response to a datamined leak (since taken down via DMCA request) that purportedly revealed a lot of information about the Animus Hub and how it would integrate with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Along with revealing the new name, we learned that the Animus Hub would include a battle pass with cosmetics that can be purchased with Isu Coins, the in-game currency. This led to people assuming that there would be microtransactions involved.
Assassin’s Creed Reddit community manager Ubi_Waldo called the rumors “inaccurate,” but did confirm the Animus Hub name. Ubi_Waldo clarified that while there will be rewards in the hub, they’d be “entirely free.” “There are no paid subscriptions or paid battle pass featured in the Animus Hub,” the post read.
A Message From the Team on the Animus Hub
byu/Ubi_Waldo inassassinscreed
There’s been some confusion around what the Animus Hub would actually be. Assassin’s Creed Infinity was always a code name, so we expected that to change, but Ubisoft announced it as part of a “cross-studio, collaborative structure” between Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Quebec that’s led by veterans from the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Was it a new game? Was it just the name for the team? Either way, Ubisoft seemed to be putting the weight of Assassin’s Creed’s future on its shoulders.
Then, a Bloomberg report claimed that Infinity would be a “massive online platform that evolves over time.” It would apparently contain multiple settings that would change as the franchise moved forward. That was also vague. Maybe it was a live-service title, but as we found out in a later IGN interview, it’s just a hub that will host all the Assassin’s Creed games starting with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It’s like a launcher, but with an Animus interface that will tell its separate story — hence the new name.
However, in 2022, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that Animus Hub would not be free to play. We’ll have to wait to see the final result when Shadows launches on February 14, 2025.
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.