Yesterday, July 18, the Destiny 2 beta got underway for players on PlayStation 4 — and already, participants are finding ways to access areas that should be out of reach. The test period offers up access to one campaign mission, one Strike, and two multiplayer maps, but we now know that it’s possible to visit what’s thought to be a Lost Sector.
Lost Sectors are a new type of activity that players can access while on Patrols, which diverge from most of the content from the original Destiny in that they’re meant to be played through once, rather than many times. Bungie has previously described them as end-game content, so it’s safe to say that this area isn’t meant to be accessible as part of the beta.
Players have managed to gain entry to the Lost Sector during the Inverted Spire Strike, which takes place on the planet of Nessus, a new addition for Destiny 2. Reaching the area requires some precise jumping through an unassuming gap in a wall slightly off the beaten track.
It’s clear that the area isn’t quite complete in the form that appears in the beta, or at least that accessing it in this way causes some problems with the way the game loads the environment. Geometry appears and disappears, and there are none of the enemies and none of the other set dressing you might expect to be present, according to a report from Eurogamer.
This kind of environmental exploration is nothing new to the Destiny community. During the beta test for the first game back in 2014, players were eager to see just how much of the game world they could access — and the fact that each planet is made up of one contiguous area offers up all kinds of opportunities for unintentional shortcuts.
Players will surely be looking out for other ways to stretch the limits of the areas Bungie has made available as part of the beta test, and as more and more Guardians are given access to the game, we’re likely to see plenty more discoveries.
Anyone that pre-ordered Destiny 2 for the Xbox One can join the beta today, while open access begins on July 21, and a separate PC beta is scheduled for August. The full game is set to launch for consoles on September 6, with its PC release scheduled for October 24.
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.