At this year’s E3, Ubisoft of America president Laurent Detoc announced that Rainbow Six Siege would be released on October 13. For Rainbow Six fans who have been waiting for the next entry in the series for years, it was a relief to hear that there were only a few more months to go.
Unfortunately, those fans are going to have to wait a little longer. Today Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six Siege won’t come out in October after all. Instead the game is now slated to be released on December 1.
“This wasn’t an easy decision, but based on the feedback we’ve received, and based on our own internal tests, we felt there are adjustments and improvements we can make, including improving the co-op experience across all game modes, weapon and gadget balancing, as well as menu and interface navigation,” Ubisoft wrote yesterday. “We’re taking a little more time to make these changes, and we think it’s the right call.”
Luckily it’s not all bad news. While the game’s final release is being delayed, the planned closed beta for the game will go on as planned. The beta starts on September 24, and the delayed release gives Ubisoft more time to fix bugs and balance issues found by beta testers.
“That extra testing and added polish will make for a higher-quality experience at launch,” Ubisoft writes. “We understand that many of you are excited to get your hands on the final game, but as gamers ourselves we know that quality comes first and we are committed to delivering the best game possible.”
Hopefully the extra development time will result in a better game, or at the very least avoid an Assassin’s Creed Unity-style launch disaster. Rainbow Six Siege is coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A special collector’s edition is available for $150, exclusively through Ubisoft’s Uplay shop.
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.