The Sims 4 has been a staple in the cozy life simulation genre for years now, bringing plenty of laughs and hijinks as players manage the daily lives of their in-game pals. With so much to love in this fourth mainline entry in the long-running franchise, it’s perfectly normal to want to dive right in and get into the fun. We’ll tell you below whether The Sims 4 is free or if you’ll need to open your wallet to start playing.
Although The Sims 4 launched as a paid game way back in 2014, it has since become entirely free to download and play.
However, while you can certainly play the game and enjoy it without ever spending any money, the free-to-play model is supported by a variety of DLCs. These range from full-blown expansion packs full of new items, areas, and gameplay features to smaller game packs that focus more on expanding existing features and providing minor storylines.
It can get extremely pricey for those looking to own all of the expansion packs and game packs in The Sims 4. As a matter of fact, you can expect to spend at least $1,000 to purchase everything currently available, and there’s no doubt plenty more DLC on the way that will cost a pretty penny, too.
Regardless of whether you opt to purchase all of the expansions, you can download The Sims 4 now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC. And yes, it’s backward compatible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, too.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.