Survival is the name of the game in Fortnite battle royale, and players are about to get their hands on a tool that increases their chances a great deal. Update v8.51 includes the debut of the Shadow Bomb, a grenade that makes the user invisible and increases movement capabilities.
The new Shadow Bomb covers the player in darkness, making them invisible to other players temporarily. It also increases the player’s movement speed and allows them to double-jump. The effect lasts six seconds and starts to wear off slightly as time passes, becoming more visible. You can’t attack, build, or loot while hidden, but this provides you an opportunity to escape a dangerous situation or even aggressively move against an enemy in Fortnite‘s battle royale mode. With the update downloaded, the Shadow Bomb can be found as floor loot or in chests, supply drops, and supply llamas.
Fortnite players that jump into the Save the World mode can serenade enemies with a new weapon introduced in version 8.51. The Duet is a dual-barrel assault rifle that deals out high damage and maintains its fire with a large-capacity magazine. It’s only available for a limited time, though, so players will want to grab the Duet before it goes away on May 8 at 5 p.m. PT.
Creative mode gets the new Shadow Bomb as well as diner prefabs based on restaurants seen around Fortnite battle royale. The new buildings are the Durr Burger, Uncle Pete’s Pizza Pit, and SofDeez Ice Cream Shop. These prefabs open up the options to create food-theme spaces for players, and the update also includes four diner galleries.
The list of bug fixes in version 8.51 of Fortnite is light this time around. Gameplay in battle royale is updated with a change to the sound effects for jetpacks, which were playing louder than they should have. The victory royale animation was also displaying for all limited-time modes with respawning, and that has been fixed as well. If you’ve been having any problems with adding suggested friends to your friends’ list, that bug has been squashed as well.
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.