While it was already known that the hotly-anticipated followup to Bungie’s Destiny would roll out later on PC than on either PS4 or Xbox One, it took until today to actually find out that day will be October 24. The information comes from the Blizzard Launcher, which now accepts pre-orders for Destiny 2.
Activision had previously announced that Blizzard will be handling the PC distribution side of Destiny 2, to mixed reactions from the PC gaming community. Some expressed confusion, apparently forgetting Activision owns Blizzard, while others expressed joy that a company with a solid reputation for delivery and server stability will handle the title.
Either way, the purchase price is the same as the console versions, at $60 for the regular version, $90 with the expansions, and $100 total for the expansions and some extra “digital deluxe” in-game items.
While the PS4 and Xbox One beta will run in mid July, the PC beta won’t start until late August. As for what the beta includes, well, we don’t know. That information remains to be seen.
Hopefully, the wait will be worthwhile. Bungie is promising the PC version will, at the least, provide better visual fidelity than the console versions. It’s unclear if any other unique features will be available. While PC is capable of handling features like enhanced player counts and dedicated servers, such extras seem extraordinarily unlikely. In fact, we already know dedicated servers won’t be a thing.
After a rocky start to the original title’s release, it’s clear Bungie wants to get everything perfect this time around. Good MMOs can last years on player enthusiasm, and after refining Destiny over several years, it’s become a game with a big, excitable following. Whether Bungie can deliver on that hype remains to be seen, but either way, Destiny 2 is only going to make more noise before its release in the fall of this year.
For years, Call of Duty’s campaign mode has used big, scripted set pieces to tell the overarching story amid all the adrenaline-pumping action. The 2023 Modern Warfare 3 tried to shake up the established formula by introducing a handful of short open combat missions, and I genuinely liked the idea, but the game's overall negative reception seeped into how those missions were received.
I feared the next iteration might abandon the idea because of the backlash, but I am glad it didn't. MW4’s “Stranded” mission uses the same approach, but instead of fragmenting it across the campaign, it puts it all in a single large-scale open-world mission.
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.