Following up on its scholarly Discovery Tour download for Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Ubisoft released a new interface for PC that lets you go under the hood of the game and tinker with some of its core settings. Sorry, console gamers — this is a PC-only exclusive.
The free Animus Control Panel lets you do things people normally do with mods by adjusting 75 different sliders within 11 categories. You can modify your saved game so you run twice as fast, nerf enemy soldiers, or even increase the number of animals you can tame. You can also swap your avatar with various characters in the game. If you’ve ever wanted to cruise through Giza as Aya on a war chariot with a posse of hungry hungry hippos in tow, here’s your chance.
The dizzying array of settings can be somewhat overwhelming at first, so Ubi has included some pre-set configurations to get you started. Hardcore Stealth, for instance, amps up enemy awareness so they will alert to the slightest noise, but you can assassinate even high-level characters with one stab. God Mode is pretty much what you’d expect, and Mad World makes enemies and the environment more aggressive.
There’s a basic guide for using the Animus Control Panel at the Ubisoft forums, and would-be assassins are encouraged to share their settings and discuss the different parameters of the various configurations.
You can access the ACP in the main game menu or in the save files overview screen. You’ll need a Uplay account in “online” mode and a save file to modify. After tweaking the settings, your new save file will be labeled “Animus Hacked.”
As might be expected, drastically changing some parameters can prevent objectives in the story mode from unlocking.
In addition to Discovery Mode, Ubisoft has followed up the release of Origins with two DLC expansions and numerous free updates, including a New Game+ mode, a Final Fantasy crossover, and the ongoing Trials of the Gods weekly challenges. If you’re just getting started in Egypt, we’ve got a beginner’s guide to get you going as a neophyte Medjay. And watch out for those Phylakes!
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.