Stardock Entertainment has revealed the many new features and improvements coming to its 4X strategy game Galactic Civilizations III in the upcoming Crusade expansion pack, including custom factions, espionage missions, and a fully revamped invasion system.
Galactic Civilizations III players can also expect to see new races and civilizations after installing the upcoming expansion, along with an exclusive story-based campaign mode.
Released in 2015, Galactic Civilizations III is a spacefaring strategy game in which players spread their civilization’s knowledge and culture throughout the galaxy. The game’s core sandbox mode allows for endless gameplay possibilities, pitting players against as many as 100 opponents within a single massive universe.
The upcoming Crusade expansion for Galactic Civilizations III will introduce new races and civilizations for players to encounter during their journey, including the Terran Resistance, the Onyx Hive, and the Slyne. These races will appear throughout a Crusade-exclusive campaign that pits the citizens of Earth against the Drengin and their allied forces in a series of large-scale space battles.
In a bid to spread Earth’s civilization to the stars beyond, players must hire spies and soldiers to take control of enemy planets. In Crusade, citizens can now train to specialize in espionage, which gives players access to stolen alien technologies and unique forms of interplanetary sabotage. Other citizens can assume the roles of admirals, engineers, or celebrities in order to improve their planet’s culture back home. Once spies and soldiers conquer alien planets, players can send trained citizens to Earth-allied worlds in order to establish new bases of operation.
Crusade also boasts a Civilization Builder that allows players to craft custom factions with unique ideological abilities. Players may also share their custom civilizations and browse other user-crafted worlds via Steam Workshop.
The Crusade expansion for Galactic Civilizations III launches this spring via Steam. Galactic Civilizations III owners can pick up Crusade as a $20 add-on, while newcomers can opt for a $40 bundle that includes the base game and all expansion content.
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.