Blizzard Entertainment surprise dropped Overwatch 2 on Xbox Game Pass on Tuesday, despite the game being free to play and already on Xbox.
You might find this to be a strange addition, but as a Blizzard blog post specifies, this is more about encouraging players to link their Battle.net and Xbox accounts. As a reward, players that do so will receive six exclusive skins: Cardboard Reinhardt, Turtleship D.Va, Cyberdragon Hanzo, Street Runner Genji, Bee Mercy, and Cleric Lifeweaver. (The image of a Reinhardt in a cardboard suit is delightful.) Players will also get 30 Mythic Prisms that they can use in the Mythic Shop for other skins.
Blizzard also said that linked accounts gain access to Overwatch 2 shop cosmetics from the past three seasons — so seasons 9 to 11. This will update each season for linked Game Pass players. Finally, Blizzard is offering a 10% XP boost.
Players will have from September 17 until November 11 to link their accounts and get all the perks. The rewards will remain active as long as you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription. You can find instructions on how to connect the accounts in the blog post linked above or through this support article.
This announcement comes alongside an Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft crossover to celebrate the latter’s 20th anniversary. Players can potentially get the Sylvanas Windrunner Widowmaker, Lich King Reinhardt, Thrall Zenyatta, and Diamond Magni Torbjorn skins.
This is one of the many Game Pass/Activision Blizzard crossovers that have occurred since Microsoft successfully acquired the company for $69 billion in 2023. Diablo 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are available for Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass for Console subscribers. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the next addition, coming to the aforementioned Game Pass plans on the day it launches, October 25.
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.