The Halo series has historically been an Xbox One exclusive, with only a handful of games and modes coming to other systems. One of those exclusives was the ambitious Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but that is changing as it’s finally coming to PC.
Announced during the Inside Xbox event on March 12, the PC version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection will have a different release model than the Xbox version did. Rather than launch all at once, the individual games will be released on PC one by one in an effort to avoid the technical issues that plagued the game in 2014.
“For the team at 343 Industries, the most important and critical element of this project is ensuring that Halo: The Master Chief Collection delivers a true ‘first-class’ experience on PC,” Brian Jarrard, 343 community director, said in the announcement. “We’re embarking on a journey with our community to build a PC experience that delivers on PC gamer expectations.”
Halo: Reach is being added to The Master Chief Collection as part of the launch, and will also be included on the Xbox One version. The campaign and Firefight will be premium DLC on Xbox One, while the multiplayer will be free. If you have Xbox Game Pass, you’ll get all of Reach as well, so you can be as heartbroken over the story as your Xbox friends were in 2010.
The PC version will be rolled out in the story’s chronological order, beginning with Reach and followed consecutively by Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, the Halo 3: ODST campaign, and Halo 4. You’ll be able to purchase any or all of these games as they’re made available on PC. They will be available through the Microsoft Store as well as Steam.
Though Halo 5: Guardians is not available on PC, the game’s Forge mode is, allowing players to create custom multiplayer maps and see how the control scheme would work on the platform. The upcoming Halo Infinite is still in the early stages of development, but will launch on both Xbox One and PC. As we approach the end of the current console generation, it seems likely that it could come to Microsoft’s next Xbox console 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.