Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions just announced its fall 2024 release date at Summer Game Fest 2024. Unbroken Studios is developing the Harry Potter sports game for Warner Bros. Games under the Portkey label.
Quidditch Champions is the second Harry Potter game for WB in the last year. Its latest is Hogwarts Legacy, which received mixed reviews for its story, open world, combat, and the beliefs of its controversial creator, J.K. Rowling.
The Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions trailer follows the storyline of a young witch joining a Quidditch team, featuring Harry Potter and the Weasleys as players on the field. It didn’t specify the exact mechanics of how the game works, but it will likely adapt Quidditch rules based on how they’re portrayed in the Harry Potter books and movies.
Quidditch, a fictional sport in the Harry Potter universe, pits teams of players against each other on flying brooms, flinging balls of various points and sizes through hoops. It also features the Golden Snitch, a small winged ball that ends a Quidditch game if it’s caught.
Quidditch wasn’t available to play in Hogwarts Legacy, so Quidditch World Cup was the last game to feature the wizarding sport. Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t seem to be directly related. However, those who connect their Hogwarts Legacy account to their copy of Quidditch Champions can claim the Bonus Legacy Pack, which includes cosmetics like the Moontrimmer Broom Skin.
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is scheduled to release on September 3 on PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. PlayStation Plus members get day one access via their subscription.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.