Herdling, a charming new indie game where players have to guide creatures up a mountain, was revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live. It’s developed by Okomotive, the game developer behind Far: Changing Tides and Far: Lone Sails, and published by Panic, the publisher behind Untitled Goose Game, Firewatch, and the Playdate handheld.
In Herdling, players guide a variety of unique-looking fantasy creatures called Calicorns up a mountain. It’s a single-player game in which the main challenge is herding and protecting the Calicorns players encounter as they solve puzzles and ascend the mountain. We see some of that in the game’s reveal trailer, in addition to stampede sequences with a greater sense of speed that will pop up throughout the adventure.
While it certainly looks atmospheric like the Far games, Okomotive co-founders admit in a press release that they wanted “to start a new kind of adventure, not only for the players, but also for us.” Game designer Fabio Baumgartner says the centerpiece of Herdling’s design was “this idea of moving as part of a herd of large, lovable, mystical creatures.” Meanwhile, Panic director of publishing Nick Suttner likened Herdling to Firewatch, Inside, and The Last Guardian in his comment, suggesting the publisher certainly has high hopes for the title.
“Herdling feels like a return to the scale and fidelity of something like Firewatch for us, so it’s really exciting to have it in our lineup,” Suttner said. “We’re huge fans of games like Inside and The Last Guardian — stirring solo adventures that really communicate a sense of awe, loneliness, and a particular brand of companionship. It feels like a bit of a lost art in the current games culture, so we were all-in on what Okomotive are doing with Herdling.”
Herdling is in development for PC and consoles and will be released sometime in 2025. Panic will also offer up a deeper look at the game during its showcase on August 27.
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.