Sony just announced the May 2025 lineup for PlayStation Plus, and it’s a doozy. Giant boltgun-wielding space marines, armored dinosaurs, and a card game best described as Poker-turned-roguelike all await this next month starting on May 6. You have until then to redeem the games from April, if you haven’t already done so.
First up is Balatro for PS4 and PS5 players. This game has been the subject of a lot of discussion, especially because it’s a small indie that took home more awards than many AAA games. At the Game Awards, it won Best Debut Indie Game, Best Independent Game, and Best Mobile Game — and for good reason. Balatro is a deckbuilder with a twist; you use a standard deck of playing cards, but some cards have abilities and multipliers that help you on your quest to get the highest score you possibly can.
Ark: Survival Ascended is the next pick, coming solely for PS5 players. Survival Ascended is the remastered version of Ark: Survival Evolved, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 with much needed quality of life updates. It includes access to all of Ark’s worlds, too, along with split-screen multiplayer for two people, private online multiplayer for up to eight people, and public multiplayer for 70 players per session.
The third and final pick is Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, a fast-paced shooter that dives into the world of Warhammer 40,000 with the graphical style of a 90s game. It feels like a classic shooter in the best way, with lots of explosions and gore to keep you entertained. The Doom influence is easily seen. The downside is that Boltgun is strictly a single-player experience, even though it’s ripe with potential for a fun, casual multiplayer mode.
All three of these games will be available to download from May 6 until June 2, so don’t miss out.
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.