If you’re a fan of strategy or simulation video games, this will be a great Xbox Game Pass month for you. Its biggest day-one releases — Age of Mythology: Retold, Ara: History Untold, and Frostpunk 2 — are all strategy games, while games like Expeditions: A MudRunner Game and Riders Republic are keeping things interesting on the simulation front. If you’re looking for something to play this weekend, I’m highlighting a trio of games that provide entertaining sandboxes to play around in.
Following remakes of the three Age of Empires games and the launch of Age of Empires IV, World’s Edge gave the series’ fantasy spinoff some love. Age of Mythology: Retold is a real-time strategy game similar to the Age of Empires titles in many ways, as players are building up towns and fighting rival civilizations. The biggest twist Age of Mythology provides is the Major and Minor Gods players choose before playing, which give them additional abilities. This remake also gives the experience a graphical overhaul, lets players reuse god powers, and has well-implemented controller support. Whether you’re a fan of the original or never played it before, this is worth checking out. Age of Mythology: Retold is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S via Game Pass Ultimate.
While the idea of a mining sandbox game isn’t a new concept, Core Keeper is one of the best the subgenre has to offer outside of Minecraft. There’s plenty to uncover in its massive underground cavern, and lots of systems work together to ensure that’s always something you can do to progress. It’s a lot of fun with friends, and its top-down perspective and farming systems add a Stardew Valley-like feel to the adventure. Core Keeper launched out of early access in August and is now available with Xbox Game Pass across PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It’s also on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PS5.
Riders Republic is Ubisoft Annecy’s successor to Steep, and it focuses on extreme sports like biking, skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, and more. Riding and exploring its massive vistas and gameplay hubs is a lot of fun on its own, but there’s also a Career Mode to work through, a trick-based 6v6 multiplayer mode, and massive races that can support up to 64 players at a time. It’s the best modern extreme sports game on the market right now, so it’s worth checking out if you miss the genre’s glory days. The PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions of Riders Republic are available through Game Pass Ultimate. It’s also on PS4 and PS5.
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.