Hitman developer IO Interactive has ended a partnership with MMA fighter Conor McGregor after a civil court ruling found he was liable for a 2018 sexual assault.
McGregor was found liable in a Dublin civil case last week brought by a woman who accused McGregor of sexual assault, and was ordered to pay 250,000 euros (or around $257,000). Prosecutors denied to press criminal charges in the initial case, and McGregor called the case “full of lies.”
“In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately,” the studio wrote on X. “We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications.”
The DLC is no longer for sale, and the video announcement has been removed from YouTube.
In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately. We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications. Consequently, we will begin removing all…
— HITMAN (@Hitman) November 25, 2024
The former UFC star has a long history of public incidents involving alcohol, driving under the influence, and racist comments from long before IO Interactive partnered with him on a World of Assassination DLC. He was previously arrested in Florida and charged after attacking a fan taking his picture, which was all recorded on surveillance video. All charges were subsequently dropped. He pleaded guilty to assault in 2019 after punching a man at a Dublin pub, and was arrested on sexual assault charges, although those were dropped.
Hitman 3 was transformed into Hitman: World of Assassination in 2023, and IO has been steadily releasing DLC starring celebrities as elusive targets. McGregor wasn’t cast as himself in the DLC. Rather, he played The Disruptor, a rich MMA star who’s tasked with fighting a tech CEO. Unfortunately, the CEO’s executives hire Agent 47 to take out The Disruptor. For doing so, players got access to some themed cosmetics, including the fur coat and a cane, along with permanent access to a two-level Arcade contract called The Ostentatious.
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.