During EA Play at E3 2018, EA Sports showed off the next iteration of FIFA, and soccer fans will be happy to learn FIFA 19 is adding the Union of European Football Associations Champions League.
Previously, the Champions League had a partnership with Konami for its soccer sim Pro Evolution Soccer. That partnership ended in April and EA quickly snatched it up. The Champions League content will be available across the whole FIFA 19 package, including Ultimate Team and The Journey, FIFA’s story mode that returns for a third season.
Once again, in The Journey, you play as Alex Hunter, the rising soccer star. The Journey was one of the coolest story modes we’ve seen in a sports game when it first appeared in FIFA 17, and FIFA 18 continued the story in a great way.
EA also said a slew of impactful gameplay changes are coming to the soccer sim, but it didn’t go into detail about what to expect. More info on gameplay refinements will be released ahead of the game’s September launch.
For those who want to dip their toes into the sim, FIFA 18 is available now as a free trial on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via EA Origin (sorry, no free trial on Nintendo Switch). The free trial opens up the whole game. It’s a limited-time deal, and EA didn’t announce when the trial would end. The trial comes ahead of the free FIFA World Cup update for FIFA 18 to celebrate the biggest worldwide soccer tournament. While Switch users don’t have access to the free trial, the World Cup content will be available on Nintendo’s hybrid platform.
FIFA 19 launches September 28 on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. EA Origin Access Premier, a new premium subscription service that will launch later this summer, will grant subscribers access to FIFA 19. Origin Access Premier is $100 per year or $15 per month. For fans of EA Sports titles — FIFA, Madden, NBA Live — it’s probably worth it.
In other EA Sports news, Madden will make its return to PC for the first time in 11 years with Madden 19. For the past decade, FIFA has been the only EA Sports game to consistently come to PC.
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.