A new Overwatch patch is now live on PC. Many have already played Doomfist, the new character released with the patch, but it also adds some welcome changes to loot boxes. The biggest change aims to “drastically” reduce the rate of duplicate items.
“We always want the experience of opening a loot box to feel exciting and rewarding,” Blizzard says in the patch notes. To improve this feeling, two keys changes have been made. For one, the amount of duplicates from opening loot boxes are being significantly reduced. To counteract this reduction, they are also increasing the amount of credits players receive from duplicate items. According to Blizzard, players should earn just as many credits on average, if not more, from loot boxes.
Other major updates include a few for the highlights system. For starters, the game will continue to automatically generate highlights based on players’ recent gameplay. These highlights, now called “Today’s Top 5,” will appear daily and remain for a full 24 hours or until the game client is patched. Additionally, players can now create their own highlights. At the press of a button, players can capture 12 seconds of gameplay. By going to “Request Highlight” in the Options menu, players can bind the action to a button of their choice or a button per highlight slot. These will be saved under a new section called “Recently Captured” and will remain until the game client is patched. Up to 36 captured highlights can be stored at one time.
For those who want to keep these highlights to show friends or look back on, players can now record any of their highlights and export them as a video file whether on console or PC. On a computer, players will also have the option to select what quality to export the highlights up to 4K resolution.
In addition to loot boxes and highlight options, the patch notes also discuss the new offensive hero, Doomfist. Those interested in Overwatch’s biggest villain should check out his initial release in the Public Test Region.
Additional changes and bug fixes can be found on the official patch notes. Other recent updates to Overwatch include Blizzard’s commitment to cracking down on trolls.
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.