PlayStation revealed a new cinematic trailer for its live-service sci-fi game Concord during the May 2024 State of Play presentation. Firewalk Studios also showed off gameplay featuring five of its characters. It also got a fresh release date of August 23 for the PS5 and PC; a beta will also be hosted in July.
Concord is a 5vs5 shooter taking place in the Concord galaxy. Players assume the role of a mercenary-type figure called a Freerunner and are part of an an intergalactic spacefaring crew called Northstar. The five characters unveiled are Vale, a woman with a knack for snipers; Haymar, a woman who can shoot fireballs; the blue brute Star Child; the mohawk-sporting Lennox; and the robot 1-Off. At launch, there will be 16 characters to choose from. The game will also have free post-launch updates that will add more characters, maps, vignettes, and more.
Every week, the game will also feature new vignettes that will show what Concord‘s characters are up to outside of gameplay in the Concord galaxy. The vignettes will tell an ongoing story, with characters receiving their own narrative arcs.
Concord is the latest game in Sony’s first-party initiative to create more live-service games. After the massive success of Helldivers 2, it looks like Sony is moving forward with releasing its live-service games simultaneously on both PS5 and PC. Firewalk Studios was founded in 2018 in Bellevue, Washington. In April 2023, the studio was acquired by Sony. Shortly after the acquisition, Firewalk and PlayStation announced Concord.
Those who preorder the game will get access to the early access beta, as will four of their friends.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.