The fourth episode of Minecraft: Story Mode, “A Block and a Hard Place” will launch December 22, Telltale games announced Thursday. The game will launch simultaneously on various digital platforms across PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. Disc-based players will be able to download the episode via online update.
Touted as the “finale” of the Wither Storm saga, the Minecraft universe seems extremely doomed in episode four. With the Wither Storm “reducing the world to bedrock,” Jesse, Reuben and their group will have to traverse the “farlands” in their final chance to find what they need to save the world. Meanwhile, the quest stands on the edge of a knife, as the ragtag group seems to be falling apart under the pressure.
“It doesn’t matter how this started or who started it,” Jessie says in the trailer. “We just have to end it.”
Either way, it seems that players will see through the “final battle” in episode four. There will be one more episode of Minecraft: Story Mode coming in “early 2016,” but Telltale described it as the story’s “mysterious” epilogue. Plus, you can’t breakout the epic trailer music without a truly climactic event to back it up.
Back in reality, Telltale announced that the first chapter of Minecraft: Story Mode has launched on the Windows Store on Windows 10. The studios said that more chapters will become available on that platform “in the coming weeks.”
In addition to Minecraft: Story Mode‘s final episode, the studio has at least two series releasing in 2016: The Walking Dead: Michonne, a mini-series directly linked an arc from the Walking Dead comic book, and a new Batman series. Further out on the horizon, the developer has penned a deal to create games set in the Marvel universe, the first of which is expected to arrive in 2017.
Minecraft: Story Mode, Episode 4 — A Block and a Hard Place will be available for download December 22.
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.