If you’ve been in the mood to kill atomic laser-eye dinosaurs in a retro-futuristic open world, then there is good news for you.
Ubisoft has announced that the critically beloved Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon will be free to download later this month in celebration of the firm’s 30th anniversary.
Celebrate November with some cyborgs and mutants! Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon will be available for free from November 9 on PC! #Ubi30 pic.twitter.com/ZEshArxhrU
— Ubisoft Club ➡ Ubisoft Connect (@UbisoftClub) November 2, 2016
Ubisoft had wanted the Blood Dragon reveal to be a bit of a scavenger hunt, but the surprise was outed rather quickly. The publisher then let the cat out of the bag and released a video with Blood Dragon’s Creative Director Dean Evans revealing the surprise.
Blood Dragon was a separate expansion built upon Far Cry 3. It’s a comedy open-world first-person shooter that pokes fun of 80’s action movies. The game was unique with its Tron-inspired neon color gamut.
As part of its 30th anniversary celebration, Ubisoft has been giving away free games all year. June saw Price of Persia: The Sands of Time, July had Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, August gave us Rayman Origins, September underwhelmed with The Crew, and October surprised with Beyond Good and Evil. November will arguably be Ubi 30’s most triumphant giveaway as Blood Dragon is universally beloved.
Console gamers are out of luck unfortunately. The game will only be free to PC gamers via the Ubisoft Club, the company’s own digital distribution service. It’s like Steam, but for Ubisoft games. It should be noted that Ubisoft Club does now link with Steam, so all your games can be organized within one library. It’s not totally seamless, though, as opening the game within Steam just launches Ubisoft Club, but it gets the job done.
The release of free games has slowly been ramping up. It will be interesting to see what free game will be given next month, as it will be Ubi 30’s last.
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.