Eschewing the now industry-standard years of teasing and hype-building, Fallout 4 exploded into our collective gaming consciousness this past June, set for a rapidly-approaching November release. In a recent post, developer Bethesda has now outlined its post-launch plans for supporting the post-apocalyptic open world game with new content, giving fans a chance to start salivating over even more adventures in the wasteland of the Greater Boston Area.
In the early, experimental days of downloadable content, Bethesda caught a lot of flack for its ill-fated and infamous Horse Armor DLC in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the phrase becoming a metonymy for incremental, paid content that many gamers feel is exploitative.
The developer learned its lesson well, and has subsequently focused on more robust paid expansions that add substantial, narrative content, relegating incidental additions to the main game to free updates. For Skyrim this meant the addition of features like mounted combat, legendary mode, and kill cams. Fallout 4 will be no different, with new features based on player feedback coming out in regular, free updates alongside the standard bug fixes and technical enhancements.
As for that paid DLC, Bethesda will start rolling it out in early 2016. Since the developer is still hard at work on the base game, it does not yet have any details about what the DLC will entail. We do know, however, that fans will be able to purchase a season pass for $30 that guarantees access to all of the DLC that Bethesda will ever produce for Fallout 4. The post points out that Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 all offered about $40 worth of additional content after release, so we can expect at least that much for Fallout 4.
Finally, fan-made mods have been a major driving force for keeping games like Skyrim played and relevant for years after release. Bethesda plans to capitalize on that passion and creativity by supporting the modding community from the beginning. In early 2016 the developer will be releasing the Creation Kit for PC, which includes the same tools that the developers use in-house to create content for the game. One of the most exciting revelations from Bethesda’s E3 presentation was that while mod creation will live in PC, those mods will subsequently become available for consoles as well, something that was a pipe dream until recently.
Fallout 4 launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 10, 2015.
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.