Buy Now launched just over a month ago, but Rebellion Developments is bringing a slew of additions to the favorably received precision shooter March 21. As promised, some of the new content will be available for free to all players.
First, the paid content. The initial leg of a three-part mini-campaign titled Deathstorm arrives on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Deathstorm picks up directly following the events of the main campaign.
Deathstorm Part 1: Inception will be playable both solo and cooperatively is set in frigid Northern Italy after a Nazi naval base has been subject to a bombing mission. As is the case in a lot of the Sniper Elite games, you play as Karl Fairburne, tasked to take out a German destroyer and the surrounding Kriegsmarine soldiers.
The focus of the three-part series lies on the Manhattan Project — the United States helmed initiative in World War II centered on developing nuclear weapons — and a package labeled Deathstorm that somehow ties into the real-world invention of weapons of mass destruction.
Deathstorm Part 2 is due out in late-April, and the conclusion comes in May or June. As of publication, it’s unclear if the mini-campaign will be available as a standalone purchase or if it can only be obtained by owners of the $35 season pass.
Season pass owners will also receive the first expansion pack: Night Fighter. “It includes three new weapons, night-time camo rifle skins for eight weapons and new male and female characters skins,” the post read.
A few days before launch, Rebellion Developments outlined the game’s season pass, but claimed that all multiplayer maps and modes released post-launch would be free to all players. Base owners of the game will gain access to one of each March 21.
The new multiplayer mode, Elimination, takes a unique spin on the traditional elimination format in multiplayer shooters. In the 6 vs. 6 mode, if you die you become a spectator, but if a teammate kills a member of the other team, they can tag a fallen teammate back into the match. The first team to fully knock out the opposing squad wins.
The night theme extends to the aptly-named free multiplayer map, Night Woods, shown above. Night Woods will give season pass owners a good environment to try out the new camo skins, but will be playable for all users.
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.