Ubisoft devoted an entire stream segment to the Assassin’s Creed franchise at Ubisoft Forward 2022. The block saw the announcement of four projects coming from the series, including a mobile game, a new mainline title, an experience hub, and another flagship game coming alongside the rest.
The largest of these announcements is the next mainline Assassin’s Creed game by Ubisoft Quebec, currently dubbed Assassin’s Creed: Codename Red. Like the recent flagship entries in the series, Codename Red is taking the globetrotting open-world series to a new country and culture with a feudal Japan setting. To top it all off, the main character of the game is a shinobi. Not too much else was said about the title and it does not have a firm release date.
A second Assassin’s Creed game is coming as well, though it’s a bit more mysterious. This one comes from Ubisoft Montreal with the assistance of Clint Hocking, an ex-LucasArts and Valve designer and director. Dubbed Assassin’s Creed: Project Hexe, the title only got a quicker teaser showing an Assassin’s Creed logo made out of twigs hanging in the woods. Ubisoft notes that the game isn’t a traditional installment of the series, but didn’t elaborate on how much of a departure it is.
Both of those titles will live inside Assassin’s Creed Infinity, a curious new project from Ubisoft. Project Infinity is a hub that’ll tie various games together, though it’s unclear how that works. Ubisoft did mention, however, that it’s looking into creating standalone multiplayer Assassin’s Creed titles, which would also live in the hub.
In addition to all of that, Ubisoft also showed off Assassin’s Creed: Project Jade. This entry in the series is a mobile game where players create their own assassins and explore an open-world set in ancient China. It’s a different project from another mobile Assassin’s Creed game announced during the show, which will be exclusive to Netflix.
No launch details have been given for the upcoming titles, but Ubisoft states that Infinity and the projects within it will launch “in the coming years.”
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.