The biggest CRPG of 2023, if not ever, promises a huge adventure that you are encouraged to play cooperatively with up to four friends. While online play is expected in the modern era, Baldur’s Gate 3 surprisingly also supports split-screen co-op on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X, meaning you can run an entire campaign with a friend side-by-side.
As great as all that is, the vast majority of people will likely want to play with a friend in the comfort of their own homes, which might mean a PC and console player will want to team up like you can in Minecraft or Apex Legends.
Is that possible in Baldur’s Gate 3? We know it wasn’t at launch, but a lot has changed over the months and years the game has been out. Here’s a quick rundown of whether this is a cross-platform game.
For the longest time, there was no crossplay support in Baldur’s Gate 3. Even after the game came out on Xbox consoles, everyone was isolated to playing on their own platforms. It wasn’t until Patch 8, the game’s final update, that things changed.
Finally, crossplay is available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC so you can experience the entire adventure together no matter where your party members are playing.
To take advantage of crossplay, all you need is a Larian Account and to go into the multiplayer menu at the title screen. From here, select “crossplay” and enable it. Once done, you can create a lobby and invite your friends via their own Larian Accounts to join you.
That Larian Account is also used for cross-progression. So long as you log in with the same account, you can carry your campaign progress to any platform you own the game on to continue right where you left off.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.