Elden Ring certainly has no shortage of weapons in its base game, yet its long-awaited expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, comes packing dozens more for players to uncover and add to their arsenal. Eight fresh weapon types have been added to the game with the DLC, meaning you’ll be able to find all-new ways to take out foes — whether it’s beating them down with dueling shields or slicing them to pieces with massive katanas. The very best weapon for you will be one that suits your playstyle and build, but we’ve compiled a list of our five favorites and why we think you should track them down for your collection.
The Smithscript Greathammer looks like a pretty standard greathammer at a glance, but this new weapon — found in a ruined forge midway through the DLC — has a cool trick up its sleeve: It can be thrown. Think of this armament as a giant version of Thor’s Mjölnir, as holding down its heavy attack sends you into a spin that ultimately throws the hammer at your foes and returns it to your hand almost immediately. This makes it a stellar choice for builds that focus mostly on bonking foes at melee range, giving you just a bit of ranged effectiveness when you really need to keep your distance.
Milady is a new Light Greatsword — a weapon class previously unseen in the base game — that can be found as soon as the first hour of the DLC by exploring the early section of Castle Ensis. This versatile weapon swings almost as quickly as a straight sword, but features the length of a greatsword. You’ll sacrifice a bit of damage per hit that you’d get out of a traditional greatsword, but you’ll more than make up for it with the flurry of attacks you can unleash with Milady’s entrancing move set. Later in the game, when you’ve found the Ash of War: Wing Stance, you can apply it to this weapon to unleash its full potential as a gap-closing, quick-hitting option that can be used to great effect in various types of builds.
Rellana’s Twinblades is another light greatsword — except this one comes with the ability to dual-wield two of them at once. You’ll have to defeat a boss in an early dungeon and take her Remembrance back to Enia at Roundtable Hold to get this excellent weapon, but you’ll find it well worth the trouble. Not only is its moveset fantastic for dealing rapid damage to enemies, but its Ash of War: Moon-and-Fire Stance is an absolute beast, allowing you to either imbue your weapon with glintstone magic for rapid swipes or cast a spinning fire attack for area of effect damage. If you’re looking to drop your foes in style, this is among the best choices in the entire expansion.
Like Rellana’s Twinblades, you’ll need to defeat a boss (this time in a later dungeon) and take his Remembrance to Enia at Roundtable Hold to score the Spear of the Impaler, but you absolutely should. This new Great Spear is a killer option for builds that make good use of Dexterity and Faith, giving you a lot of range in your melee damage. More impressive, however, is its Ash of War: Messmber’s Assault, which coats your spear with flame and sends you into a visually thrilling attack string that ends with you slamming the weapon on the ground to create tons of spears in the surrounding area. There are few weapons in the game with this kind of flair, so we’d recommend at least giving it a go.
With the right build, Bloodfiend’s Arm has the potential to be one of the best weapons in the entirety of Elden Ring due to its ability to cause significant stagger damage and rapid bleed buildup. You won’t have to do much to get this Colossal Weapon, either, besides farm some relatively easy enemies early in the expansion. Its Ash of War: Endure isn’t the best choice, but since you’ll likely be abusing its unique R2 attack to do most of the work for you, your Ash of War will probably be an afterthought anyway. Take the time to design your build around this hulking weapon and you won’t be sorry.
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.