In a year marked by the release of some enormous and long-anticipated games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Mass Effect: Andromeda, one of the most persistently popular titles came seemingly out of nowhere: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. This modern military shooter structured as a massive Battle Royale entered Steam Early Access in March and has remained one of the most popular titles on the platform since. Fans eager for the full release at the end of the summer will have to be patient for a bit longer, however, as a recent Steam community post from the lead developer announced that the full release has been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2017.
“Over the past few months I have done a lot of interviews,”(such as ours from E3) PlayerUnknown explained, “and in many of them, I said we hoped to be out of Early Access six months after we first launched. I’ve come to realize that restricting the window to a specific month could hinder us from delivering a fully featured game and/or lead to disappointment within the community if the launch deadline is not met.”
Given that it’s already one of the most popular games on Steam in terms of sales and concurrent players in its current, Early Access state, we don’t anticipate this delay putting much of a dent in its momentum.
Accordingly, PlayerUnknown opted to push the game back several months to the more general goal of the last quarter of 2017. Not committing to a specific month ensures that the developers will not feel undue pressure to hit a particular date, so they can instead focus on polishing the game up to a level with which they are happy. Players can continue to expect the same level of support and steady improvement that the game has thus far received, however: “We will continue to push weekly and monthly updates until full launch as we want to ensure that the game we release is the best version possible.”
Since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds launch, this has included features like new weapons and gear, jumping and vaulting, and a zombie horde mode. PlayerUnknown has spoken to numerous outlets about plans to expand Battlegrounds beyond just Battle Royale, serving as a platform for other gameplay modes and mods, just as Arma 2 gave the developer a starting point, eventually leading to this game’s creation.
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.