No Man’s Sky is several years old and has received several major patches that have morphed the game into a completely difference experience from its lackluster launch. Almost all the changes are for the better. The latest Beyond update is the next literal game changer, and you won’t even have to wait two weeks to try it out.
Hello Games announced today that No Man’s Sky: Beyond would be available on August 14. Called the “most ambitious chapter so far” in the game’s lifespan by director Sean Murray, the update includes “a radical new social and multiplayer experience.” It’s a remarkable change from when the game initially launched as a solo experience.
By far the biggest addition in Beyond is the new VR mode. It’s enabled for both Steam VR and PlayStation VR. As the Xbox One doesn’t support a VR headset, players on that platform will be left out of the fun.
The VR experience is designed to radically transform the game, with you holding the joysticks inside your vehicles to pilot them, with display screens visible in front of you. Weapons are held in your actual hands through tracked motion controllers, and you can feel like you’re being eaten alive as you soar through a hole in a speeding piece of space debris.
That’s not all. Hello Games’ official announcement mentions three new features, but only calls out expanded multiplayer and VR support. What’s the third feature? That’s a mystery for now. The short teaser trailer offers few clues — but the music does seem rather ominous, doesn’t it?
Hello Games’ commitment to improving No Man’s Sky over time is appreciated. Back when first released in 2016, it was met with middling reviews, many of which criticized the lack of incentive to continue playing despite its massive size. This criticism was taken to heart, as the game later added base-building elements and multiplayer features to keep players coming back.
No Man’s Sky is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. We are still patiently awaiting the day the game gets Nintendo Switch support so that we can play the whole thing through Nintendo Labo’s VR goggles.
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.