Cuphead has been one of the most eye-catching games at E3 for the last several years. Studio MDHR’s platformer, meticulously hand-drawn to look like a 1930s cartoon, will finally arrive on September 29 for Xbox One and Windows PC. PlayStation owners will be out of luck, however, as the developers recently confirmed that Cuphead will remain a lifelong Microsoft exclusive.
Responding to a fan question on NeoGAF following a recent Games Radar post (via Polygon) about the development process, the developer confirmed that Cuphead will remain an Xbox/PC exclusive, coming first to Steam and the Windows Store, with a GOG version to follow later. They added that there will likely be Mac and Linux versions down the road, but the game will never come to PlayStation 4 or any other consoles.
Although Microsoft does retain publishing rights, having prominently supported Cuphead‘s development for several years now, Studio MDHR does still own the IP, which they clarified at the end of the above comment. Specifying their ownership of the IP and the specific phrasing of the response (“Yes, this Cuphead game …”) would suggest that the developer is open to bringing any sequels to other platforms, assuming the first game lives up to its long-simmering hype.
After starting development in 2010, Cuphead debuted at E3 2014 during Microsoft’s press conference. It was playable at the show in the following year, but eager fans were disappointed to learn that the game as it was conceived then would only contain boss fights, without platforming levels to break them up. The team responded in kind, going back to the drawing board to flesh the game out to match player expectations.
With such a small team and the time required to make bespoke animations, this pushed the game’s release timeline back for several years. That expanded vision is actually closer to the team’s original intention for the game, which had previously been scaled down to just boss fights in order to keep it manageable for a team of three working on weekends. The overwhelming excitement the project received, however, primarily for its striking aesthetic, encouraged them to go back and make the game they had wanted to from the start.
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.