BioWare has been busy lately with the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the first Dragon Age title in over a decade. The developer released a new patch on Thursday, which includes a surprise N7 Day Easter egg.
The official Dragon Age account posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Patch 1 would feature a special cosmetic armor for player character Rook. All players need to do is head to the Lighthouse and complete the quest “The Singing Blade.” You’ll then find a chest next to the workshop with the armor.
Happy #N7Day! Make sure you download the latest patch for #DragonAge: The Veilguard – there's a gift waiting for you 💫
Instructions:
– After patching, you’ll find a chest next to the Workshop
– Chest appears after completing the Harding Mission “The Singing Blade”
– If “The… pic.twitter.com/hREYbTdnqi
— Dragon Age (@dragonage) November 7, 2024
November 7 is known across the video game landscape as N7 Day, or a way to celebrate all things Mass Effect and potentially reveal some updates. It’s been a long time since a proper Mass Effect game. While BioWare is working on Mass Effect 4, it appears to be a long way from a gameplay reveal (although it got a short teaser on N7 Day 2023). The company still uses it to promote new merchandise, small teasers for upcoming projects, and other goodies.
BioWare just released the new Dragon Age, so it told fans to not expect much this year. “This year is a little different as we just launched Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a studio; so we’re purposefully keeping things lighter as we celebrate the launch of the game,” a statement posted on X read.
However, BioWare did restock its official store with a ton of new merchandise, including an N7 trenchcoat, a crop top, hoodies, T-shirts, bookends, and a nearly 10-inch-tall Wrex statue. BioWare also announced some game crossovers; No Man’s Sky, for example, will be getting the Normandy for the second time. Oh, and Variety revealed that a Mass Effect TV show is in development at Amazon. So for a reportedly “lighter” year, there was still a lot of gifts for fans.
Patch 1 also fixed a ton of issues in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, including how companion skill points would reset, NPC necks would grow “unexpectedly,” and DLSS options would be grayed-out on 40-series Nvidia GPUs.
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.