Insomniac Games announced its next project, a new 2D side-scrolling action game called Song of the Deep, Thursday morning. The announcement follows a cryptic trailer released by the developer Monday teasing the announcement, showing environments from the game and asking players to “dig deeper.”
Inspired, in part, by Irish mythology, Song of the Deep tells the story of 12-year-old Merryn, who explores the ocean in a hastily built submarine to find her father, who’s been lost at sea. As both the teaser and announcement trailer show, Merryn will explore ancient ruins and will fight some underwater creatures along the way. The story will be told with fairy-tale flair, featuring cutscenes drawn to resemble a children’s book.
According to Polygon, the the moment-to-moment gameplay resembles a more puzzle-oriented version of classic “Metroidvania”-style gameplay. Merryn will find (or build?) extra components that will allow her to progress through the game and find new power-ups, such as a diving suit, which will allow her to exit her sub and swim though openings her vessel can’t reach.
The game’s true novelty, however, is taking places behind the scenes: Song of the Deep will mark retailer GameStop’s first forée into video game publishing. In addition to releasing the game digitally on PC, Xbox One, and PS4, a disc-based version of Song of the Deep will be available exclusively through GameStop. GameStop will also sell non-gaming merchandise based on the franchise. According to GameStop marketing VP Mark Stanley, their partnership with Insomniac is a cautious experiment for the company that may or may not lead to further projects.
“This is the project we’re completely focused on right now,” Stanley told IGN. “It’s the first time we’re doing this. There’s been a lot of learning along the way, and I think there’s still a lot of learning to be had. Based on this, we’ll obviously consider all options. I think one of our focus points and one of the reasons why we dove into this project is part of my role is to look at different ways of expanding our business and bringing more value to our customers.”
Song of the Deep will come to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this Spring.
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.