Square Enix’s PlayStation 4 RPG compilation Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue will miss its targeted December launch date and is now set to premiere in January of 2017, the Japanese publisher announced this week.
Series creator Tetsuya Nomura offered an explanation on Twitter (via Destructoid), revealing that members of Kingdom Hearts 2.8‘s development staff put the project on the back burner in order to finish up work on Final Fantasy XV.
Kingdom Hearts merges Disney’s cartoon characters with heroes, villains, and storyline elements from Square Enix’s Final Fantasy franchise, resulting in a uniquely themed crossover RPG. Kingdom Hearts 2.8 is the latest remastered release for the series, following up on the recent PlayStation 3 remakes Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX.
Announced last year, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 is a PlayStation 4 remake of the 2012 Nintendo 3DS series sequel Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. The package also includes an all-new narrative chapter, Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage, which fills in storyline gaps surrounding Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep protagonist Aqua.
Players can get further insight into the Kingdom Hearts universe with the compilation’s third included chapter, Kingdom Hearts: Back Cover. Delivering its story snippets via non-playable HD cinematics, Back Cover serves as an introduction to the upcoming series sequel Kingdom Hearts III, which itself has been delayed multiple times since its was initially revealed.
Square Enix’s Nomura revealed this week that Kingdom Hearts 2.8 will support Sony’s upgraded PlayStation 4 Pro console at launch. Players who own the new hardware can expect to see higher-resolution textures, more consistent framerates, and HDR imaging across all supported titles.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue will launch first in Japan on January 12, and localized releases will hit North America and Europe on January 24, 2017.
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.