Overwatch 2 news has been sparse over the past few years outside of unwelcome delays, but new information is finally emerging ahead of its upcoming closed beta. That silence was broken with Blizzard releasing multiple trailers of the newest hero joining the sequel’s roster, Sojourn.
Sojourn was initially shown off two years ago in the Overwatch 2 gameplay reveal trailer. However, with a lore trailer yesterday and a gameplay trailer today, we now have a better look at the sequel’s Canadian cyborg soldier who’s shown to be as hospitable as she is mobile and deadly.
Like most Overwatch characters, Sojourn is a hero from the Overwatch program, sharing victories with characters like Soldier 76 and Mercy. Since their original adventures, she’s gone defunct along with the rest of the team … until now. Her personality isn’t too different from the rest of the cast, but the Overwatch series tends to develop characters slowly over time through additional media.
Sojourn’s gameplay trailer gives a close look at how she plays, as the clip shows off some tricks and abilities that make her unique. One standout point is her movement, as she has a slide that ups her momentum and allows her to evade certain obstacles like forcefield walls. She can also continue firing her assault rifle-like railgun while using this movement, making her one of the more agile characters in the series. Hits from her railgun result in her secondary attack, a high power blast, getting more power.
Along with this, she has a wide-range snare shot that slows enemies and eats away at their health. Her Ultimate is confirmed to be called Overclock, which charges the railgun and allows every shot to pierce opponents.
Overwatch 2 still doesn’t have a firm release date, though a closed beta is set to begin soon.
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.