Ahead of the official reveal later this evening, a promotional image spotted on the Xbox Store has set the Internet ablaze with speculation that this upcoming entry in the shooter franchise will be heading back to the early 20th century with a World War I setting. (via NeoGAF)
The image (above) depicts a soldier in a typical Battlefield game cover action pose (including the requisite hard orange side light). His clothing, pistol, and the zeppelin looming in the background point toward the first World War. The emblazoned name “Battlefield 1” spotted and tweeted by The Daily Dot’s Myke Wehner further supports this theory. The flowing cape and what appears to be a mace in his left hand give it a slightly fantastical flavor as well, however.
While countless shooters have been made about World War II, including the early entries in both the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises, its predecessor has not seen nearly as much representation. And lately the genre has been skewing toward the future, with science fiction technology allowing for more dynamic gameplay that features exotic weapons and cybernetic superpowers — following 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, that franchise is doubling down with the recently announced Infinite Warfare going even further into the future.
Moving in the opposite direction seems like a savvy move to differentiate the Battlefield series from the glut of sci-fi shooters. This is helped even further if there are indeed fantastical elements, which are a currently underutilized way to spice up prosaic shooter gameplay with special powers and video game pizzazz. Fantasy and first-person shooters have occasionally intersected over the years, most notably early on with Heretic and Hexen in the mid-90s from Raven Software, who is now developing the remastered edition of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
We won’t have to wait too long to find out, because the next Battlefield game is scheduled to be revealed later today at 4:00 pm PT.
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.