Square Enix has announced that A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV will be made available for free via the PlayStation Store and the Xbox Store on March 1. The game was previously released as a pre-order bonus for Buy Now when the game launched in November 2016.
A King’s Tale is a spin-off that fleshes out the backstory of King Regis, the father of Buy Now protagonist Noctis. The game eschews the franchise’s traditional role-playing mechanics for side-scrolling beat-’em-up gameplay inspired by classic titles from the 1980s and 1990s.
The game using a framing narrative that sees King Regis telling his son bedtime stories about his adventures with familiar characters like Cid, Weskham, and Clarus. The game is said to last a little less than an hour for most players, which is on the short side, but befitting of its earlier status as a pre-order bonus.
However, from March 1, anyone interested in learning a bit more about King Regis will be able to download A King’s Tale for free. The game will be available whether or not you have purchased Buy Now , according to a report from Dualshockers.
While the game doesn’t bear any resemblance to Buy Now in terms of gameplay, it seems that Square Enix is hoping that releasing it for free will tempt players into trying out the main game. It’s a teaser for the main plot — as well as a treat for beat-’em-up fans who feel underserved by the current console generation.
Square Enix certainly went all out on Buy Now , even discounting the fact that the game spent ten years in development. As well as A King’s Tale, the game was accompanied by a web series entitled Brotherhood, a feature-length movie called Kingsglaive, and the as-yet-unreleased virtual reality experience that’s in production for Buy Now .
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.