Rise of the Tomb Raider, the recently released follow-up to Crystal Dynamics’ fantastic 2013 reboot of the action/adventure series, will come to PC in “January 2016”, according to a quietly launched Steam page. Neither Crystal Dynamics nor publisher Square Enix has formally announced the port yet. While the Steam page gives no more specific date than the month of January, an Amazon France listing from earlier this month (reported by IGN) suggested a release date of January 29, 2016.
Rise was announced at Gamescom 2014 as an “Xbox Exclusive,” which prompted some amount of consternation among fans. Square Enix subsequently clarified that the Xbox exclusivity was only timed, and that the game would be coming to PlayStation 4 and PC at some point in 2016. There is no indication yet as to when the PS4 port might be arriving. The previous Tomb Raider launched simultaneously for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC in March 2013. An updated Definitive Edition was later released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, improving performance and bundling all previously released downloadable content.
Rise of the Tomb Raider continues Crystal Dynamics’ rebooted timeline, following a young and inexperienced Lara Croft as she faces formative perils that forge her into the seasoned badass of previous games, portrayed by Angelina Jolie in film. It merges exploration and survival with third-person stealth and action (and of course a healthy dollop of solving puzzles in ancient tombs). In his review for Digital Trends when it hit Xbox One and 360 in November, Phil Hornshaw described it as “a beautiful, exciting blast from start to finish,” and one of the best AAA blockbuster games of 2015.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.