Destiny 2 has had a pretty rough last few months. Players who have stuck around since the game launched in September have been voicing their frustrations with Bungie’s lack of consistent new content, and after the underwhelming Curse of Osiris expansion, the pressure is on the studio to right the ship. Bungie has released a “development road map” that looks primed to do that, but players are going to have some waiting to do.
The development road map, which you can view in full on Bungie’s website, first outlines the upcoming additions and changes coming to season 2, which kicked off in December. On February 27, changes are planned for multiplayer strikes and social interactions. These include reworking emblems and auras, unique rewards for Nightfall strikes, a Nightfall scoring system with high-score tracking, and the ability to see fireteam members of the “destination” map before touching down — the Nightfall strike rewards are a “stretch goal” that could release later than February 27.
On March 27, changes are coming for the competitive Crucible mode as well as “sandbox changes.” The update will introduce six-versus-six Iron Banner multiplayer, walking back Bungie’s previous commitment to keep all competitive modes at eight players total. Changes will also be made to avoid having players repeat the same Crucible maps or strikes multiple times, and there will be quitter penalties for those who quit Crucible matches early.
Season 3 of Destiny 2 will kick off in May, likely alongside the release of the second expansion, and more substantial changes are on their way. The raid lair “Eater of Worlds” will be getting a Prestige difficulty mode, and the game will be adding Exotic Masterworks — these items are currently limited to Legendary. You’ll also have the ability to form private multiplayer matches — a long-awaited feature — and there will be season ranks for Crucible. “Valor” will progress as you complete matches, while “Glory” will go up and down depending on your performance.
Destiny 2‘s most recent update added the ability to earn Masterwork armor in addition to weapons, and it made it more convenient to get raid gear that didn’t drop during your run. The update also added new “raid mods,” which only give bonuses when you’re in the Leviathan.
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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.