Titanfall series developer Respawn Entertainment has canceled its mobile collectible card game spinoff Titanfall: Frontline, claiming that “the experience wasn’t ready to deliver the intense action-packed gameplay synonymous with Titanfall.”
The sudden cancellation arrives after months of development and extensive beta testing. Respawn issued a brief statement confirming the game’s forthcoming shutdown at Titanfall: Frontline‘s official website this week.
“It is our goal to create the best Titanfall mobile games that showcase the fast-paced action, mobility, and, of course, the power of Titans in this iconic series,” the statement reads. “We’ve learned an incredible amount in the beta test of Titanfall: Frontline, but in the end felt the experience wasn’t ready to deliver the intense action-packed gameplay synonymous with Titanfall.”
Developed by mobile studio Particle City and set to be published by Nexon, Titanfall: Frontline had entered a late stage of closed beta testing prior to this week’s shutdown notice. Beta testers will be able to spend a few more days with their virtual Titanfall decks before support officially ends this weekend.
Titanfall: Frontline‘s cancellation is the latest in a string of recent setbacks for the Titanfall series, following up on reports that the multiplatform sequel Titanfall 2 failed to meet sales expectations after a rough launch in October. Financial services firm Cowen and Company now expects Titanfall 2 to sell 6 million units across all platforms, down from initial projections of 9 million units.
Despite waning series popularity, Respawn Entertainment remains committed to mobile platforms, and confirmed that “future Titanfall mobile games” are being considered.
“While it’s never easy to cancel a game, we’re excited to take some of the concepts we saw resonate with players and build off of them in future Titanfall mobile games,” Respawn’s statement concludes. “Titanfall: Frontline‘s closed beta will be winding down in the next few days, and servers will go offline on January 20, 2017.”
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.