Blizzard confirmed that the next major expansion for Hearthstone is set to become available in less than a week. Knights of the Frozen Throne will take players to Northrend, the seat of the Lich King, when it drops on Thursday.
The developer gave fans the good news in a tweet on Friday. Knights of the Frozen Throne was announced in July as the Hearthstone Championship Tour made a stop in Shanghai. It is the second of three expansions expected to drop in 2017, following Journey to Un’Goro, which was unleashed in April.
This content drop marks a major change in the way that Hearthstone approaches single-player content. Starting with Curse of Naxxramas in July 2014, Blizzard previously released Adventures, which consisted of themed matches that would reward players with new cards that tied into their individual setting.
However, Adventures are being phased out in favor of Missions, which will accompany forthcoming expansions from Knights of the Frozen Throne onward. The focus is still on battles with computer-controlled opponents but now instead of specific cards, card packs will be offered as a reward.
The Missions are free to play but will be rolled out over several weeks; the prologue and the first wing will launch alongside the expansion, the second wing will drop a week later, and a week after that, players will be able to engage in the final showdown with the Lich King. The mode’s narrative revolves around the player proving they are worthy to stand among the titular Knights.
Completing the entire quest offers three free card packs, which will help players flesh out their collection of cards from the Knights of the Frozen Throne set. The expansion introduces 135 new cards to the game, alongside the new Hero Card mechanic, according to Polygon.
It has been more than three years since Hearthstone graduated from its lengthy beta but the game shows no signs of slowing down. Blizzard continues to keep World of Warcraft alive for well over a decade and, at this point, it would not be surprising to see its card game enjoy a similar lifespan.
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.