Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky hit the PlayStation 4 and PC in 2014, offering players a nearly limitless universe filled with procedurally generated planets and creatures. The game skipped the Xbox One at the time, but that will soon be rectified thanks to a big, new update.
Coming later this year, the Xbox One version of No Man’s Sky will be available at retail. The PlayStation 4 version was also available in retail stores when it originally launched. Game publisher 505 Games will handle the physical distribution. The Xbox One version will include all of the content developed so far for the other versions of the game, including the large “Atlas Rises” update.
This summer, all versions of No Man’s Sky will also receive the game’s largest update to date, which Hello Games has dubbed “Next.” It isn’t clear yet if the Xbox One version will be released at that time, but it will feature Next when it’s eventually released.
“Each update for No Man’s Sky has been more successful than the last,” said director Sean Murray in a press release. “This was especially true with our last update, Atlas Rises. It emboldens the team to push ourselves further. This journey is far from over, and it’s exciting to be working again on something you know will surprise people.”
Though the original launch version of No Man’s Sky was criticized for its lack of content, the updates it received added base-building and multiplayer, giving players more of a reason to stick around on various planets aside from just stripping its resources dry. Quality-of-life changes related to how items are stored also make the game less frustrating, as players don’t need to drop what they’re doing to sell their found supplies as often. A more substantial narrative hook still isn’t really there, but perhaps the Next update will address that.
With No Man’s Sky coming to Xbox One, only one major platform is missing the game: Nintendo Switch. Though it would likely be a technical challenge to get it running on the weaker hardware, much of the game is playable offline, so players would be able to take it with them on the go.
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.