Riot Games and Radiant Entertainment released a video about Project L, the League of Legends fighting game they are hard at work on, ahead of the global fighting game tournament, Evo. The most significant thing announced during this August 2021 update is that Project L is a free-to-play game.
Project L is a 2-vs-2 assist-based fighting game in the same vein as titles like the Marvel vs Capcom series. The game stars characters made popular in the League of Legends franchise, with its latest addition being the juggernaut champion, Illaoi. A developer blog specifically focused on Illaoi’s creation also came out today.
Like League of Legends, Project L is going to be free-to-play, so it’s likely to feature in-game purchases for things like characters and skins. You can see this same business model successfully achieved in the recently released Warner Bros. platform fighter Multiversus. Project L developmental lead Tom Cannon also says Project L’s monetization will be “respectful of both your time and your wallet.”
Cannon also states that the development of Project L is going well. The team is confirmed to be currently finishing up its work on the core mechanics of the game, with a lot of the development team moving on to building playable champions. The game also is going to apparently have tons of side features other fighting games have lacked, as the update also confirms things like competitive play and social systems are on the way.
While there is no confirmed release date or even window for Project L, Cannon confirmed that we’ll hear about the game at least one more time before the end of 2022.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.