The upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield expansion will be available in just a couple of weeks, then followed by another one this fall, the Pokémon Company said on Tuesday.
The first Pokémon Sword and Shield expansion, The Isle of Armor, will be available on June 17. The second expansion, The Crown Tundra, will launch this fall. Together, they make up the two parts of the Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansion Pass.
The DLC is set in a newly accessible part of the Galar region called Isle of Armor. In a statement, The Pokémon Company said the region will place players into new kinds of environments, including beaches and sand dunes, and will feature a new dojo for developing new skills that’s helmed by a master named Mustard.
The dojo will have a recycling function called Cram-o-matic. When players feed the Cram-o-matic four different items, it’ll spit out a new, combined item they can use across the region. The Pokémon Company said the Cram-o-matic will produce everything from newly envisioned Poké Balls to PP Ups.
The expansion will feature several new Pokémon, including a hermit crab called Galarian Slowbro, the Gigantamax Venusaur, and the Gigantamax Blastoise, among others.
The Isle of Armor will also offer several new “adventuring features,” including tutor moves that will allow you to teach your Pokémon new skills in return for a new substance called Armorite Ore, which you’ll find in Max Raid Battles. The game will also deliver a fire-type move called Burning Jealousy that damages every opposing Pokémon in a battle.
One other tidbit: The Isle of Armor will have a new dish called Max Soup that, if consumed, will allow any Pokémon to become “capable of Gigantamaxing.”
As its name suggests, The Crown Tundra will take place in a “snow-swept realm” featuring winter mountains. Players will need to explore the region and delve into Pokemon dens found inside Max Raid Battles. Like The Isle of Armor, The Crown Tundra will feature new characters and moves.
The upcoming expansion pass is available in Nintendo’s eShop for $30. It’ll give you access to both The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra.
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.