Developer MercurySteam had a busy day Tuesday, revealing a new trailer, four campaigns, closed beta dates, and an updated website for its upcoming game Raiders of the Broken Planet. It’s an asymmetric cooperative or competitive online game featuring close-quarter shooting and melee combat.
At launch, Raiders will feature a self-contained Alien Myths campaign. Throughout the year, three additional campaigns will be released called Wardog Fury, Hades Betrayal, and Council Apocalypse. Together, they form the 2017 season and tell parallel stories that can be seen in any order. Each campaign features new missions, characters, and other content.
Anyone looking to try out the game before its launch can sign up for one of the closed beta tests. The first chance to play takes place this weekend, from Saturday, May 13, until Sunday, May 14. Players on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One will all have a chance to try out the unique 4-divided-by-1 brawling shooter. Afterward, players are encouraged to access the Hangout community page to discuss the game or offer feedback directly to the development team.
MercurySteam has also released the first character comic that dives into the characters’ backstories. The first comic focuses on Harec, the leader of the Raiders, as he fights to protect his home from invaders targeting the planet’s resources.
In Raiders, players can join a team as a raider, or fight against them. As a Raider, players enjoy fast-paced, tactical, cooperative gameplay. Those looking to fight more competitively can fight against the Raiders alongside an AI-controlled army. Being a Raider isn’t as easy as choosing to be a hero or an antagonist. In this world, it is best to play somewhere in between.
Raiders of the Broken Planet will be released this year on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. More details on the game’s lore can be found on the website.
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.