Sony unveiled a brand-new trailer for the upcoming God of War 4, painting a grim portrait of Kratos’ future in the frozen lands ruled by the ancient Norse gods. Accompanied by his son, Kratos embarks on a perilous journey to do something apparently very dangerous — we’re not sure what exactly but this latest trailer definitely piqued our interest.
The upcoming God of War installment will serve as something of a soft reboot for the venerable Sony series — which was once a flagship game for the then-budding PlayStation 2 console. But there are a few allusions to Kratos’ dark past in the most recent trailer, illustrating that the past games and their — at times problematic — stories will weigh heavily on Kratos. It’s a new game, in a new style, but if nothing else this new trailer cements the fact that it is still quintessentially God of War.
Why is that? Well, in between all the fraught and foreboding dialogue there’s plenty of axe-swinging, monster-chopping, and massive beasts — even a friendly giant snake. The giant snake is, in fact, the world serpent from ancient Norse mythology. He rears his massive head near the end of the trailer, and for some reason Kratos’ son is able to communicate with the friendly serpent.
The game appears to be taking a closer-in perspective than previous entries in the God of War series, with a more introspective narrative, as evidenced by the relationship Kratos shares with his son — and lines that call into question Kratos’ brand of violent hyper-masculinity.
The inclusion of this kind of narrative texture is definitely welcome, even if it is a huge change from the simple revenge-fests that characterized the previous games, God of War has apparently grown up a bit during its time in the wilderness. But don’t worry, this trailer proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God of War hasn’t forgotten what made it famous: killing mythological monsters, ripping them limb-from-limb with visceral and deeply satisfying combat.
Check out our full coverage of all things E3 right here.
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.