Back in February 2014, about a year after the release of Buy Now , development studio Irrational Games went through some big changes. Co-founder Ken Levine reduced the studio to all but a few team members to start a new endeavor.
Now, almost three years later, Irrational Games has adopted a new name with a new concept of storytelling. Now called Ghost Story, the small studio was founded by 12 former Irrational Games developers. According to its website, its mission is “to create immersive, story-driven games for people who love games that ask something of them.”
Fans of Irrational Games’ previous work have a lot to look forward to from Ghost Story. The core members that made BioShock as innovative as it was are here to continue their craft. However, don’t expect their next game to be the same. “While we believe our new games will have strong appeal to fans of BioShock, our new focus allows us to craft experiences where the gameplay is as challenging as the stories,” they said in the announcement.
Beyond that, little else is revealed about Ghost Story’s future games. On the website, there are a few quotes from various Ghost Story employees. One employee, technical lead Jeremy Carson, even mentions his excitement to be working on a new IP.
Another developer, senior animator Seth Kendall, had a little bit more to say on the studio and its upcoming game. “Real focus on making core games for core gamers,” he said. “Emphasis on making games with inspiring and intriguing story and characters, with a high-quality bar for execution. Deep interest in finding innovative solutions to problems that have plagued game development for decades. The world and IP we are creating is richly specific and original, and conveys both wonder and nostalgia.”
Ghost Story still remains under the Take-Two umbrella as it works hard on its upcoming project.
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.