For as long as the Final Fantasy games has been known as a series and not just one game, the pattern has been clear for new entries in the series: first they’re released in Japan, then some time later — maybe soon, maybe not — they make their way to the rest of the world.
For the first time for a main numbered entry in the series, Final Fantasy XV will be breaking that tradition. When the game is released, it will be released in all territories at once, meaning no wait for those of us outside of Japan.
“This may be something that we are little bit embarrassed to talk about, but really, this is the first time that we’ve done a packaged, standalone Final Fantasy game with a simultaneous global launch, so we didn’t have the setup to deal with that, really,” Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata told GameSpot. “The first thing we had to do was rearrange our internal structure to create something that could do that. That was the first important work on the project.”
No release date has been set yet, but Tabata confirmed at Gamescom that his team was aiming to see Final Fantasy XV released in 2016. “We can certainly say to people: it’s not going to be 2017. It’s going to be before that,” Tabata said.
While a 2016 release would give Square Enix plenty of time to polish a feature-complete game, that isn’t the case with Final Fantasy XV. Game systems are still being implemented, while whether or not to include player-controlled airships — a series staple — is still being debated.
Final Fantasy XV is set to launch on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and while Square Enix has yet to confirm a launch date, we suspect it could be right around the corner.
For a brief glimpse of what the game’s story will have to offer, see the new trailer released last week at GamesCom below.
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.