During Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII 25th anniversary stream, the company revealed Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It’s the second part of the remake series, and it’ll launch next winter for PlayStation 5.
Square Enix also confirmed that the remake series will be a trilogy, with the third game coming later. Rebirth has entered full production, and some of the development staff are already working on the third entry. Also announced was Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion, a remaster of a 2007 PSP game that will release this winter for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Square Enix also took some time to show off Final Fantasy VII games on mobile and PC. On the mobile front, we saw the new season of Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier and learned that Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis will get a closed beta later this year. Meanwhile, PC players can expect it on a new storefront. Final Fantasy VII Remake was previously a PlayStation console exclusive but came to PC late last year as an Epic Games Store exclusive. Thankfully, Square Enix announced during this stream that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade will finally come to Steam on June 17. It is also verified to work on Steam Deck for those who prefer a portable experience.
It’s currently unknown whether Final Fantasy VII Remake or Rebirth will ever launch on Xbox or Nintendo platforms, as they weren’t brought up during the livestream. Those games were all the highlights of the stream, but Square Enix also highlighted that there is some merchandise available to order, such as a Buster Sword alarm clock. It’s certainly an awesome time to be a fan of Final Fantasy VII.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.