It seems like patching Diablo II was only the beginning — Blizzard announced today that a patch for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is coming out tomorrow. The legendary real-time strategy game was released in July 2002.
Robert Bridenbecker, head of classic games for Blizzard, announced the patch in a video addressing Chinese Warcraft III fans, PC Gamer is reporting. Patch 1.27 will be released on March 15 all around the world. It’s the first patch for the game in four years; patch 1.26a came out in 2011.
Blizzard announced a patch for Diablo II last week, hinting that updates for other classic titles were also on the way. Three days later they’re making good on that promise with this announcement.
It’s not clear what the Warcraft III patch will actually do, as Blizzard hasn’t offered any details. A good guess, however, would be that this patch will make the game work better on modern computers.
The Diablo II patch made the game more compatible with contemporary operating systems, including Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan. For Mac users, the patch means Diablo II can run on Intel Macs without emulation, for the first time since Apple switched to Intel processors back in 2015. For Windows users, the patch made the game a lot easier to install, and increased stability a great deal.
Fans have long wanted a sequel to Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, the third in a series of real-time strategy games. The fantasy universe contained therein became the setting for World of Warcraft, the famous massively multiplayer role-playing game that has drawn millions of users. So while more gamers than ever before enjoyed the Warcraft universe, fans of the original trilogy have been without a true sequel for over a decade.
It’s not clear if that’s going to change, but at the very least Warcraft fans can relive Warcraft III, and there’s always the upcoming Warcraft movie to look forward to.
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.