Gears of War 4 Review

With Microsoft's new aggressive strategy of bringing games to the forefront of the Xbox One, it was clear that previous Xbox exclusives would be making their return to the new generation. We had Halo 5 and Forza, but now the time has finally arrived and it's the return of Gears of War.

The franchise has been reignited in the hands of a new developer, The Coalition, lead by Rod Fergusson they have more than proven themselves capable of taking over the franchise with their previously released Gears of War Ultimate Edition. But while that was a remastering of the title that rides on nostalgia, Gears of War 4 raises the bar in returning the franchise to the forefront of unrivaled cover-based combat.

After an impressive showcased set of flashbacks, you're taken back to Sera 25 years after the events of Gears of War 3, the world is still recuperating from the devastation and aftermath caused by the Locusts. The people have now become divided and the COG controls the state with one purpose: to keep humanity alive no matter the cost. They're deep into constructing a new society that is almost fascist in its nature, where people lack in individuality and their purpose is only to continue living. Those who do not accept this way life become outsiders and escape the clutches of the COG.

The outsiders use guerilla tactics to infiltrate COG compounds to steal necessary equipment to keep their villages powered and the people protected. You play the son of Marcus Fenix, JD, who - unlike his dad - is naive and cocky. He too is an ex-COG and after going AWOL, he's now an outsider alongside his close friend, Del and fellow outsider, Kait. Together they stir up trouble by stealing a needed fabricator - a machine used to replicate weapons and equipment. It isn't long before the COG are on their tail commanded by the new chancellor, Jinn. Things don’t go to plan and now faced against a barrage of DeeBee's - COG built robots to enforce and maintain the populous. They battle it out and reach the village unscathed, but this is where the real story begins.

Unbeknownst to both the COG and the outsiders a new threat has been stirring trouble, and both inhabitants of the COG and outsiders’ villages have had people go missing. Placing the blame on one another, tensions begin to escalate to the point of war, but after seeing the threat first hand, dubbed the Spawn by JD and his team, they seek out the only man who may know the answer behind their arrival, Marcus Fenix.

As the story goes, it's one the best in the series: the introduction and flow of the story ties past events together nicely. The set pieces throughout are thrilling and action packed, and while it does have the typical enter-new-area-killing-everything cliche it doesn't over do it. In fact, it tries to make each moment exciting, with different enemy types barring down and unexpected encounters that make you think "that was a little too easy, something big is gonna happen" and usually it does. With the world wrecked by windflares - heavy storm-like, tornados made of fire and lightning, the Swarm and DeeBee's aren't your only threat, it's the environment. There is certainly a lot of variety within and it's exciting throughout, moreso if you play co-operatively and on a harder difficulty. Still, as engaging and action packed the story maybe, it's all to train you towards the real chuck of the game, Horde 3.0 and competitive modes.

Horde mode makes its return and it's better than ever before. The entire system has been vastly revamped. No longer is it just survival, it's 3.0, a tour de force of team support and base management. You still have 50 waves of increasingly more powerful enemies and every 10th wave is a boss wave, but with the introduction of fortifications, your team can set up defenses around the map to slow down the incoming threat, whether they be DeeBee's or the Swarm or a combination of both.

As you mow down and gnasher blast your way through you'll collect energy you can use to build. The key is building up your defense, but if you start becoming overwhelmed (and you will) a relocation will be needed, you can move and adjust the positions of the defenses and is recommended to do so during the intermission, you can during, but you'll be slow and unable to fire till it's placed down. Players can now choose a class and each have their advantages and disadvantages so it's worth experimenting and finding the best class for you. Teammates can now be brought back during a wave, but only if you collect the tag from a fallen ally. Horde 3.0 is where co-operation really shines and going in solo, while it’s just as a fun, isn't as rewarding as working and communicating as a team as the later waves (that's if you survive) can get brutally difficult. If you've completed the campaign and competitive mode isn't your thing, you'll truly have a fun time with Horde mode.

As for competitive, fans of Gears of War 2 and 3's multiplayer will feel right at home with Gears of War 4's multiplayer. Playable with 5v5, you can either choose social matchmaking or dive into the ranked competitive modes. The difference being that social allows you to jump straight into the action on a random map and mode. Ranked matches have individual playlists to choose from. The new models introduced are fantastic additions to the series. The new Dodgeball mode alone is intense and frantic that has you take down the opposing team to stop them from respawning. It's a constant back and forth as each kill brings another player back, if you or a teammate can't get the kill and your team gets wiped out it's game over. Not much has been changed from the formula, you still have your wallbouncing, gnasher firing, lancer downing combat. That alongside a still impressive onslaught of weapon pick ups from the longshot sniper rifle, the rocket launcher boomshot to the new dropshot - which launches a guided explosive charge into the air.

The mechanics that made Gears of War the excellent shooter that it is, are updated and brought to the current generation. There is one big difference compared to before, you can no longer constantly active reload. Before you could reload your weapon mid clip and as long as you hit that sweet spot you had additional damaging shots. This has now been changed to a timed active reload, and personally while I couldn't get along with at first, it does work and makes the gnasher combat a bit more balanced. Nonetheless, multiplayer still maintains itself as one of the best and most competitive out there. The new bounty system, which are essentially selectable challenges, allow you gain a boost in XP from playing. Many bounties vary from kills, win modes or score x amount of points. They're a good incentive, but don't have a huge reward like skins or characters, those are saved for the terrible operations packs.

As you play, whether it be competitively or on horde, you're rewarded a small amount of credits which can be used to purchase operations packs to unlock skins, bounties and boosts. It's not well implemented and is almost identical to the systems used in Halo 5 and the recent Call of Duty’s. It's difficult to complain too much, though, as purchasing is entirely optional, but it certainly makes you wish for the return of actual rewards like in previous Gears of War titles. Still, the overall gun and game play is very much Gears of War as before and while this could be criticised by some players, in my opinion it's a perfect combination of old and new.

The visuals and performance of Gears of War 4 are astounding. Built on the latest Unreal Engine 4, the work put into the visual fidelity is best in the business, from highly detailed textures, character models and impressive physics and effects. The quality is sharp, clean but still gritty, with little post-processing effects to cover the cracks. The multiplayer beta that gave players their first look may have been left many disgruntled by the quality, but this goes to show that beta truly was a work in progress. Playing on the PC, I was little skeptical about performance due to the recent efforts from Microsoft. Especially a massive Xbox title such as this, but that all changed. Gears of War 4's PC performance is outstanding and is one of the most optimised PC releases this year. Those varying from low to high end machines, will have no trouble running at 60FPS or even higher. You get many options to tweak and toggle and customise and the game itself does an excellent job of automatically pre-setting the graphics. The benchmark tool available is also one of the clearest and detailed around, showing CPU and GPU performances on frame rate. The only real shame of the PC version is its availability only digitally and through the Windows Store (Windows 10 is required). Nevertheless, Gears of War 4 is a perfect example of how a PC port should be made and as it is also part of Microsoft's Play Anywhere, PC owners also get a Xbox One copy too.

After having a blast with the campaign, The Coalition have taken the helms of the Gears of Wars franchise and have made it their own. The story, has enough variety and excitement to keep you hooked, it does have a few drawn out moments, but they are few and far between and when the action kicks in, it's a thrilling ride and perfectly encapsulates the old and brings out the new to push forward for the future. While everything feels very catered toward cooperation playing as a party, the experience can still be thoroughly enjoyed solo. Multiplayer is still just as great and well balanced enough that both veterans and new players will be able to enjoy for a long time. Horde 3.0 is also a great return and will keep players coming and going, challenging themselves to push further through the waves and work as a team. As a whole package, I commend The Coalition for Gears of Wars 4, there was little to dislike about the experience and the team have more than proved that a returning franchise can still be epic.