Xbox is kicking off October with three new games coming to Game Pass, along with two from the Ultimate tier getting added to the Standard tier, the first time the company has had to make that distinction.
Inscryption and Sifu, two standout indie titles from 2021 and 2022, respectively, are absolutely worth checking out when they hit Game Pass this month. Sifu, coming on October 2, is a third-person beat ’em up with a twist: every time you die, you get resurrected as an older version of yourself. This brings some advantages, like new skills, but your health decreases. Sifu is less about defeating waves of enemies and more about improving as you go, becoming something of a kung fu master.
Then there’s Inscryption, a combination deckbuilder, roguelike, and escape room where you’re stuck in a cabin playing against a mysterious gamemaster. It’s tough to explain what’s going on here without spoiling the experience, but we’ll say it’s also a great game for the Halloween spooky season. Check it out when it drops on to Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Standard on October 10.
Arguably the biggest game featured in Tuesday’s announcement is MLB The Show 24, which will now be available for the new Game Pass Standard tier. Ultimate will still get new titles day one, but they might hit Standard eventually after several months. Open Roads is the other title that was previously on the Ultimate tier that’ll now be on Standard; both will be available on October 2.
Here’s the full list of Game Pass changes for the first half of October, including what was announced at the Tokyo Game Show over the weekend.
Tokyo Game Show announcements (all available now)
Game Pass Ultimate perks (all available now)
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.