People hoping to take off time from life thanks to Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 can finally start making some plans. At Gamescom Opening Night Live, 2K Games announced that the 4X strategy game staple will be releasing on February 11, 2025.
You can preorder the game now if you’re absolutely sure you want to disappear from the world for at least a month. The standard edition will cost $70 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox, and it’s $60 on Nintendo Switch and PC (the Tecumseh and Shawnee packs are included). There’s also a deluxe edition available that’ll cost $100 on PS5 and Xbox and $90 on Switch and PC. The more expensive bundle comes with everything in the standard edition, along with five days of early access. Finally, there’s a Founders Edition for $130 on PC (other store pages haven’t been updated at the time of this writing).
This first look at Gamescom, which will be followed by a solo presentation, also revealed the initial peek at gameplay. It looks a lot like recent Civilization releases, although the visuals have gotten an obvious overhaul. Firaxis notes in the product description on Steam that there are other gameplay improvements: the tutorial has been reworked for newcomers, and game veterans will enjoy improved progression, which includes being able to carry over across multiple rounds.
Firaxis creative director Ed Beach said this is the “biggest, most ambitious” title the company has ever developed, so we assume there will be a lot to announce over the coming months.
While Civilization 7 was announced during Summer Game Fest this year, we didn’t learn much of anything about it. The CGI cinematic teaser panned over some familiar world landmarks like the Great Sphinx of Giza, but otherwise, there was no other information revealed. However, 2K promised that there would be a full reveal in August and a release window in 2025.
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.