Mass Effect will return Holiday 2016 with Mass Effect Andromeda. EA began its press conference with an in-engine teaser trailer for the next game in the critically-acclaimed science fiction RPG series. Ostensibly, as the title suggests, this new installment of the Mass Effect franchise will take place in Andromeda, the Milky Way’s closest neighboring galaxy.
The trailer begins with a helmeted character in iconic N7 armor arriving at a mysterious desert planet. The following moments show shots of combat, alien locales, and a Mako-like vehicle bombing the dunes of the planet’s surface, closing out with a title card and Holiday 2016 release window.
The previous Mass Effect trilogy took place in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and followed the messiah-like figure, Commander Shepard, on a mission to save the galaxy from an apocalyptic alien menace. The series ended with the galaxy in a very different state than when it began, so exactly when Mass Effect Andromeda takes place in the timeline of the series remains to be seen. However, setting it in a different galaxy circumvents the need to address the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3.
The trailer raises other questions as well, such as who is this masked character, and how did they get all the way to Andromeda in the first place? The world of Mass Effect has only dealt with intra-galactic travel, but never intergalactic. With all these questions, fans are eager to learn more about the newly revealed sequel. Hopefully new details will emerge soon, until then be sure to check out the trailer footage above, and stay tuned to Digital Trends for continuing E3 coverage.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.