If you managed to make your way into the inaccessible (or intended to be) secret room in Fallout 76, you best not have taken anything with you. Those who are found to have items from this room are having their accounts banned from the game.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Bethesda explained that the secret developer room was being accessed by PC players, and the only way to do so would be using third-party programs. Those who have been banned can contact the publisher’s support website, but the accounts are only temporarily deactivated while the issue is being investigated.
Not only was Bethesda concerned about players gaining items inaccessible to other players, but also about the potential for players to profit from their conduct by reselling them online.
Bethesda had been banning players earlier for accessing the developer room, but the publisher had stayed quiet about the exact reasoning before January 16.
A Fallout 76 Reddit group focused on exchanging items between players outright banned the items found in the secret room last week. The list includes multiple helmets and hats as well as several paint styles, and the community continues to compile information on strange items they’ve seen in the game. They also urge those who already obtained the items to drop them immediately, though it isn’t clear if Bethesda will be checking those who had the items, or just those who still currently possess them.
Bethesda has been releasing a steady stream of updates for Fallout 76 since it launched last November, but the game still has quite a long way before it can realize its full potential. A December patch destabilized the game client even more, resulting in hard freezes for some players, and other gameplay changes that were not clearly explained to users in advance.
Some of these growing pains are to be expected, as Fallout 76 is the first online multiplayer game in the series and developer Bethesda Game Studios is known primarily for its story-heavy single-player games. However, with such a rough start and so many other online titles to play like Destiny 2 and The Division 2, it remains to be seen if Bethesda can salvage its game from the apocalypse and get fans interested again.
Fallout 76 is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
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.