Gears of War: Reloaded is a love letter to the original — flaws and all. It looks great, plays well, and plays it safe with a few modern upgrades.

Ducking under enemy turrets, carefully throwing a grenade, and turning a Locust's head into pulp with a pull of my Gnasher shotgun: It's the same as it was years ago, but it still feels great.

Over the past several days, I've had the opportunity to play Gears of War: Reloaded, a second remaster (more on that below) of the original game that updates the visuals for modern gaming hardware, while still leaving the base experience as it has been for the past 19 years.

The result is fun, and it's worth experiencing if you somehow haven't ever checked out the pioneering effort that this game provided for not just Xbox, but third-person gaming as a whole.

With cross-platform play and cross-progression, it's an iconic game made to look better than ever while being more accessible than ever. That's reason enough to take a look.

Why You Should Trust Me

Why You Should Trust Me

Samuel Tolbert

I love shooters of all shapes and sizes, and I've been a longtime fan of Gears of War. My personal favorite in the series is probably Gears of War 3, but I also adore Gears of War 2 and Gears 5. I've spent countless hours trying to earn some of the series' infamously difficult Achievements, and spent equally countless hours replaying the campaigns in co-op.

Gears of War: Reloaded review — What is it?

Gears of War: Reloaded is a third-person shooter developed by The Coalition (with support from Disbelief and Sumo Interactive) and published by Xbox Game Studios.

This is the second remaster of the original Gears of War developed by Epic Games, with the first remaster, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, being developed by The Coalition back in 2015, shortly after Microsoft acquired the Gears of War franchise.

Gears of War: Reloaded builds on Ultimate Edition, using it as a base while the visuals and framerate are further improved, alongside other technical aspects such as new accessibility options.

Gears of War: Reloaded is available for $40 (it's a free upgrade for Xbox players who bought the digital Ultimate Edition before it was announced) on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and (in a series first) on PlayStation 5, complete with cross-play and cross-progression support. It's also included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

Gears of War is set on the world of Sera, where an alternate humanity is struggling after the events of Emergence Day, which saw the Locust Horde emerge from underground, killing millions upon millions.

In desperation, the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) used the Hammer of Dawn satellite weapon to burn human cities, destroying large chunks of the invaders alongside massive parts of humanity.

Now, the survivors are split into camps, with the Gears working as soldiers for what's left of the COG, while others stick to themselves as so-called Stranded.

Gears of War opens 14 years after Emergence Day, with Dominic "Dom" Santiago rescuing his friend Marcus Fenix from prison. Enlisting Marcus back as a Gear, the pair work together as part of Delta Squad to try and end the war once and for all.

Gears of War: Reloaded: at xbox.com

The original iconic third-person shooter returns, this time as a multiplatform endeavour bring 4K visuals, better textures and effects, 120 FPS in multiplayer, and much more. Xbox, PlayStation, and PC players can all join in with Delta Squad together!

👉See at: PlayStation | Steam | Xbox

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Gears of War: Reloaded review — Story and characters

Gears of War centers on the exploits of Delta Squad, one of the many teams of human soldiers fighting back against the Locust Horde.

The story is still the most straightforward in the series, with a simple plot: Delta Squad is assigned to deploy the Resonator, a device that can map out the underground Locust tunnels and allow the COG to deploy a weapon that can finally destroy the underground menace.

While Marcus and Dom initially seem to be stoic stereotypes, both have hidden depths, with some surprisingly introspective lines as they reflect on the toll this war has taken on everything.

Gears of War: Reloaded review — Gameplay and features

The original Gears of War (while not the first third-person shooter) was one of many titles that helped solidify the genre, implementing different gameplay mechanics that are still used in other titles today. All of that was true in 2015 with the Ultimate Edition, and it's true now with Reloaded.

The biggest focus? Cover. Wading out into a firefight is a great way to die, even on the lowest difficulty, which means I have to strategically weave between different walls and columns to avoid enemy fire, only popping out to briefly focus on an enemy or three.

You do have options for when a melee breaks out, with the iconic Lancer rifle's Chainsaw Bayonet (when revved up) easily cutting through Locusts that are unfortunate enough to round the corner at the same time as you.

Gears of War also introduced a unique mechanic called Active Reloads, which incentivize frequent reloading with careful timing. Upon reloading, a bar moves under the gun in the upper-right corner.

Reloading a second time at just the right moment will reload the gun faster than it would've been otherwise, getting you back in the action quicker and bestowing more damage for a limited time.

The campaign can be played in single-player or two-player co-op — which can take anywhere from 7-10 hours, depending on what difficulty you're playing on — and is spread across five acts, with different chapters introducing new enemies to take and weapons to use.

While I played through the campaign, I did not have the opportunity to try the remastered multiplayer. The servers are online, but there weren't enough players trying the multiplayer in the review period to get into a match.

No bots in multiplayer is a miss, especially since the team has done other backend work, with servers that run at 60Hz instead of 30Hz.

I'll update this section once I've had the chance to play the multiplayer for a bit after the game is available for everyone.

Gears of War: Reloaded review — Visuals and audio

Gears of War: Reloaded looks beautiful, with a number of improvements that have been layered on top of the previous remaster. That means that the vast majority of the character models, environments, and other textures generally look as they did with 2015's Ultimate Edition, but better.

The final output of a 4K HDR image and a smooth 60 FPS in campaign (with 120 FPS support in multiplayer) is combined with a number of improved effects, especially for lighting, explosions, post-processing, and different particles.

The result is gorgeous, with some particularly impressive skyboxes and indoor scenes, with the light pouring through shattered windows in the rare tranquil moments. The game's sound quality has also been updated, with support for 7.1 3D Spatial Audio.

Reloaded also takes advantage of the ultra-fast SSDs in consoles, with no loading screens in the campaign. The only exceptions are when I loaded a campaign save or when I died and reloaded a checkpoint, and these only took a couple of seconds at most.

Gears of War: Reloaded review — Accessibility and approachability

Gears of War: Reloaded has a handful of useful accessibility settings. One particular feature that I like is the ability to remap the COG and Locust team colors for markers and weapons, in multiplayer and in campaign.

While they are set to blue and red by default, nothing is stopping you from flipping them, setting the COG to orange and the Locust to green, and other combinations. There's even an option for changing the damage indicator color as well.

You can also change it so you merely have to hold a button instead of mashing it for specific actions, which is useful for anyone who suffers from repetitive stress injuries in their hands. Players can also rebind controller buttons away from the default setup.

The game also features screen narration, as well as text-to-speech and speech-to-text, making it easier to communicate without typing out messages in multiplayer.

There is still one area left for future improvements, as it's not possible to adjust the size of text for subtitles and your ammo count.

As for the game's general approachability, this is the best way to get started if you're a newcomer in Gears of War, since it's the very first game in the series. Just be sure not to skip the opening cutscene.

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Gears of War: Reloaded review — My final thoughts

✅You should buy this if...

• You've never played Gears of War.

If you're a newcomer (on PlayStation, Steam, or even Xbox) that has somehow never played the original Gears of War, then this is the definitive way to do it. It looks and runs better than ever across more devices than ever.

• You want to play Gears of War co-op across different platforms.

• While Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 have co-op across PC and Xbox, this is the first time that a Gears of War game has been available on PlayStation. Because of the smooth cross-play and cross-progression systems, it's perfect for jumping into co-op and playing together with a friend or family member, no matter your platform of choice.

❌You should not buy this if...

• You aren't interested in cover-based third-person shooters.

While Gears of War is the quintessential foundation on which cover-based third-person shooters are built, if you don't enjoy the genre, then this isn't going to be the game that changes your mind.

You're going to be ducking into waist-high walls through the entire game, and innovations from later in the series (like grabbing enemies from behind cover or assassinating foes that are unaware of you) aren't present here.

Gears of War: Reloaded is a fascinating thing, from both the perspective of game development and on the end-user side.

Everything is built on the bones of a prior remaster, yet the result is a hair more visually impressive than I would've imagined prior to first playing it. Nostalgia plays tricks, and the overall improved image quality is more than I expected.

Still, this is the same game as it was in 2015. The improvements that the sequels brought with new weapons and gameplay options aren't here, and there's no photo mode or other additions that would make a replay even easier to recommend.

Truly, the most significant difference Reloaded brings is its availability, as it's now a full multiplatform release that's here for the first time on PlayStation consoles while also finally giving PC players a decent version of the game.

If you've never played Gears of War before, this is your opportunity to go through one of the most important third-person shooters in gaming history. If you have played it before, it's still the definitive edition of a landmark release that's easier to play across platforms, and it's probably worth a co-op run or two, but you'll be fine waiting as well.

Gears of War: Reloaded is a good time, but more than anything, it's got me curious as to just what the eventual, inevitable remasters of Gears of War 2 and 3 will end up looking like.

Gears of War: Reloaded is now available on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Steam and Xbox PC), and PlayStation 5. It's also available in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

Gears of War: Reloaded: at xbox.com

Gears of War is now available for cross-platform co-op sessions, meaning you can take the fight to the Locust no matter if you're on Xbox, PC or PlayStation. The visuals look better than ever, too!

👉See at: PlayStation | Steam | Xbox

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