Just a month before its September 9 release date, Splatoon 3 got a huge info dump via a 30-minute Nintendo Direct. The stream showed what we can expect from the upcoming Nintendo shooter and promises that there is going to be tons more coming with at least two years of support and a teased expansion.
Yes, like in the previous entry, Splatoon 2, Splatoon 3 will receive various free updates for two years after its release. The stream also showed a hint of a paid expansion featuring silhouettes of Splatoon 2‘s icon duo, Pearl and Marina. This DLC may be in the same vein as the Octo Expansion, which added a ton of content, including an entire story mode, to Splatoon 2.
The initial drop of Splatoon 3 is nothing to scoff at either. The game is bringing some new content to the ink-off, like the new in-game card game, Table Turf Battle. This mode is a deckbuilding remix of Turf War where cards are used to cover a grid of squares in ink. The player that inks the most wins.
The game is also bringing tons of new and old stages, weapons (including an ink sword called the Splatana and all the previous weapons), and special weapons. Nintendo promises a stage count of 22, with more to appear in future updates.
One of the biggest new additions is a Splatfest exclusive Turf War called Tricolored Turf War. This throws three teams against one another in a single turf war which sounds wonderfully chaotic.
Splatoon 3 is set to hit shelves and digital marketplaces on September 9.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.