A teaser site from developer Otherside Entertainment revealed the studio is making System Shock 3, the next entry in the PC shooter series. Otherside tweeted a link to a version of the site that shows two floating S’s and a timer counting down to midnight on Monday, December 14. However, a second link posted to NeoGAF revealed the name behind the curtain, and a form to sign up for the developer’s mailing list. Though the page is sparse, Otherside may reveal more information when the countdown ends next week.
System Shock‘s significance after lying dormant for more than 15 years, is a matter of pedigree. The last game in the series, System Shock 2, was released was co-developed by BioShock developer Irrational Games and remains widely recognized as a spiritual forebear to the series.
Though System Shock 3 will not necessarily pick up the mantle it passed on to BioShock, Otherside does have a connection to the original series. Based in Lexington, Massachusetts, Otherside is a small, independent studio created by Paul Neurath, founder of System Shock developer Looking Glass Technologies. The developer raised more than $860,000 for their first game, Underworld: Ascendent, in March via Kickstarter. According to their campaign, that game is on track to ship in November, 2016.
Meanwhile, another developer, Night Dive Studios, is currently working on a reboot of the original System Shock. Night Dive acquired the rights to the franchise in 2013 and recently released System Shock: Enhanced Edition, a proof of concept for their project, in September. During an interview with Fast Company, Night Dive head of business development Larry Kuperman said they planned to speak with other publishers interested in publishing a sequel.
“To really do another game in that series is going to take resources and time and commitment that we don’t have, and it’s really not our core business,” Kuperman said.
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.