Talking Point: Has Xbox Done A Good Job With Gears Of War So Far?

I wasn’t a fan of 4 at all, but I loved 5.

I gave them an A, solely based on the rumours that amazing new updates, remakes and collections to hopefully release in 2024. As well as GoW 6 to come…

Can't complain. Gears 4 was solid, Gears 5 was excellent and Gears Tactics is sublime!

Microsoft is so weird about its franchises. They're more than happy to push Master Chief or "Gears of Wars person" (excuse my ignorance!) on "we're all here" marketing ad but they don't shout about the games.

Maybe it's because of the arrangements they have with certain studios? I feel Forza gets more marketing than say Halo or Gears. Although Gears hasn't had much going on for a while but Infinite should be getting shouted about by Microsoft.

Okay you got me this was a stealth Halo comment.

The Coalition did a great job with Gears 4 and 5. The Hivebusters DLC is fantastic too. A

Maybe Microsoft could bring back Cliffy B for Gears 6, I don't know who is helming Coalition since Rob left to join ABK..
One thing almost certain is that the next Gears will be a UE5 tech spectacle.

I'm torn on the Marcus Fenix stance of whether they should continue to slowly move on from him or reboot his story. Overall they have done a great job with the franchise. I really enjoyed both 4 and 5.

The 2nd party Gears Tactics was great too. I hope that gets another game.

Gears of War 1 - Loved
Gears of War 2 - Pretty good
Gears of War 3 - Average
Gears of War 4 - Boring
Gears of War 5 - Gave up early on

But for some reason I’m still really interested in what comes next for the series.

its been pretty forgettable since the original trilogy

The writing has been so inconsistent. JD was super bland in 4 but Kait was really interesting. Then in 5 JD has a very interesting arc that all happens off screen while Kait became a typical "angry female protagonist". Del is pretty bland all around and Fahz is a great lovable douche bag, but again we dont get to see much of him cause his story is told, not shown. Not to mention them killing Anya off screen, that still infuriates me.

Absolutely love Gears Tactics!
Hoping for a sequel or even a Halo Wars Tactics.
Main games are good too!

@Nic-Noc20th-C I'd love a Halo Wars Tactics!

I love Gears 4/5. They’re mine and my wife’s favorite games to play together. They would probably be top 10 games for me based on the split screen gameplay but I don’t like the world and characters. There are too many awful nouns to remember.

Love the Gears franchise, but where is the next game?

Epic admitted they had no idea where to go with the franchise after 3 and that was kind of apparent in the court room drama Gears of War Judgement (even though I enjoyed that one too). In that context, Xbox has done a good job of giving it a direction.

I have read all the books too. There is something magical about the franchise for me, it is such a strange blend of corny/cartoonish but also intense, captivating and just plain cool.

4 or 5 dont even come close to the original trilogy.

4 was just ok. Gears 5 visual quality was amazing but I hated the open world areas. as visually stunning as it was roaming around in that vehicle to reach the next destination, i was also very bored. Those areas are completely unnecessary and i feel they where added because now pople think every game need to be an open world. It does not.

Loved Hivebusters.

I gave a C but should of gave a DI loved gears4 and tactics but gears5 was to much a step away I hated the open world bits in the game. Plus no remasters or remakes of 2&3 still is a joke they don't give the love they give halo to gears but it had just as much if not more to do with the success of xbox its the only reason i came to xbox in the first place

@LX_FENIX Jesus Christ, she is having horrifying visions that are preventing her from sleeping and you’re reaction is ugh typical angry female meanwhile Marcus is a giant ***** to everyone at all times for no reason but you like him enough to use his name as your handle. That’s a bit of a double standard for women.

@RBRTMNZ Damn man, talk to me before you roast me 😂 I don't think Kait is THAT bad, but seeing her go in that direction was disappointing since there was so much more that could have been done with her with everything going on.

And my name predates Gears. He has his moments but I've never been a big Marcus fan, even in the original trilogy.

A few hiccups, but they're handling it much better than 343 with Halo.

I bought my first Xbox 360 for Gears of War and have played them all, 1,2,and three are my favourite as I like the dark gritty atmosphere that lease games portrayed , Judgement was ok but not Epics finest, 4&5 imo have lost the horror and dark storylines and present themselves as too colourfull and bright, hivebusters is a good DLC for gears 5. I tried gears tactics but couldn’t get on with as it’s not my style of play, that’s not to say it’s a bad game though.
I still play gears 5 most weekends with a few friends on horde.

@LX_FENIX Haha, sorry about that. I was just surprised because I played GoW 1 over the holidays and the whole time I was shocked by how mean Marcus is to everyone. I didn't remember it being so bad.

@themightyant not that it's a bad score but I would have rated Tactics a lot higher than that.

I absolutely love the original trilogy, judgement was trash, 4 was meh but 5 seemed to be heading in the right direction again and I really did enjoy it. I hope they lose the open world ***** though, that seemed like needless filler. I prefer Gears in more claustrophobic spaces as I think it adds to the atmosphere and tension.

@RBRTMNZ Yea i remember playing it co-op and i always wanted to use Dom. Marcus got better throughout the series, but he was always my least favorite compared to the rest of Delta

No they were so quick to kill the face of the franchise unlike other franchises milk it …. They should’ve used the newer crew for the judgement series and kept gears of war with Marcus and his generation … idk what’s with Xbox always trying to turn the face of a major ip so fast meanwhile Nintendo and ps will use it for many console releases with the same main character

I also miss the horror feel from 1

One of the only games where the story got me very emotionally involved, but not since MS took it over.
Multiplayer has been handled better than the campaign.

@SacredPYRO It probably going to have a bigger open world. Gears is a franchise that is used to show the advancement of UE, and with UE5 big thing being larger open environment with incredible detail. Open world is not going anywhere. TC is also the studio that helped with The Matrix Awakens, so everything they learned to big that open world to life will probably in the Gears 6.

Not great. I actually like 4 more than 5, to me it felt more Gears like. 5 was open world because everything else is and had one of the stupidest story choices I’ve ever seen in a game, even more so in a Gears game. Tactics was great.

I’m not hopeful for the future, more so because I think it’s hard to recreate what made the originals special in today’s climate.

absolutely not . gears needs to go back to being grungy and gritty . i hate how colorful and toned down 4 & 5 are.

@Fenbops yeah , nowadays if they tried to recapture that same magic as the originals it would be written off as “edgy” or “outdated”

kinda like how sony ruined GoW so that it could sell to a much wider audience

@RBRTMNZ you really think marcus is mean ? wow 😂

I want to say the Gears of War series has been handled well by MS because I like 4 a lot and, overall, also really enjoyed 5. However, the choice segment at the end of 5 was beyond stupid, harmed the game a little bit and has me very concerned about future entries in the series. That part was a bunch of developers thinking they're smarter and better storytellers than they actually are. Completely unnecessary.

Can’t beat the first game ❤️

@nomither6 definitely! The grit of especially the first is so awesome!

They’re good but they need a new vision for multiplayer. New modes and reasons to keep playing. The graphics have been amazing though! I think Gears Tactics was badass and incredibly well done for that genre.

The article says it all: kind of hard to stay positive as a fan these days when the Microsoft itself doesn't seem to care at all about the franchise.

@Gamer83 Hmmm, you think they wrote themselves into a corner and that's what's causing the delay? God, I hope this isn't one of those trilogies that's just made-up as it goes along.

Cliffy B recently tweeted on 11/28/2023 for Microsoft to call him about Gears 6, along with a pretty unique idea he had. Cliff seems to be doing just a bunch of random small non-gaming projects recently, so a design consultant for Gears 6 would be a nice return to bookend the second trilogy.

Personally, I've enjoyed the "new" games as much as the old games. Sure they have weak points like the open world segments in 5, but every Gears game has that one bit you really don't like playing again and would gladly skip if you could.

I adored Gears Tactics and really hope we see a sequel.

I just don't like how quiet the franchise has gone. I get they just aren't ready to release Gears 6 but there are other options to keep the brand active. Remakes/remasters of the other Gears games, spin-offs like Tactics, and a sequel of Tactics. All things that don't take the coalition away from Gears 6 whilst keeping the IP alive.

As with everything else, I think Gears has been trying to grow and be too inclusive which is turning a lot of the original lovers of the game off.

It has lost a lot of its grittiness. In the first two games you had to show skill in getting through the levels and it was all about grit. But since three it has been smooth and easy to get through the levels even at harder difficulties.

The female lead story is ok, but as with everything it is more about the personal female then it is about the overall story. Story telling has to return to the overarching stories instead of always trying to delve deep into morals and personal struggles. It is like every story game now a days has to stand for some morally woke emotion rather than just be a simple story that entertains you.

Souls games don't apologize for the story and gameplay they all seem to have. Gears should not have apologized and changed to try and get a much broader audience.

I'm not happy with their direction since epic. I remember trying 4 and being bombarded by these dumb geometric balls with the robots over and over and just thinking every time "wow what is this doing in a gears of war game? Does not belong."

@nomither6 You don't think Marcus is mean? Would you let your boss or friends and family talk to you the way he does to his subordinates because I would not. He is consistently belittling and dismissive towards them. He doesn't just reject their ideas, he is a d*** about doing so. If other people are treating you like that, especially your boss, then you need to learn to stand up for yourself and stop it. If you're treating other people like that then you're a mean person and should stop.

Campaign has been ass in both 4 and 5 but horde mode was amazing in Gears 5 after balancing and content patches, I played hundreds of hours. Hivebusters and Gears Tactics are also A++. Overall, C. They need to scrap Kait (which they won't do) and give us more delta (which they might do). Gears: The Next Generation was a bad idea that didn't work out.

It's interesting. The game always looks phenomenal and has great gameplay. Although I have to admit the story kinda sucks now. I tried to get behind Kaits story, but honestly JD's story is more interesting. The characters aren't really likeable. The brotherhood that Marcus, Dom and the rest created is what made you want to know their story and come back for more. I honestly could not care less about the new trio. I hate that it's not really about war anymore either, that's what made the original trilogy so good. The horrors of war, watching characters you loved fight back from the edge of depression. Or die in heroic battles to save the world. I hope they get back to that.

@stinkyx
I don't think they wrote themselves into a corner, there's directions they can take this. I just think it was stupid and unnecessary and the cynical part of me wonders if it wasn't done, to some extent, to annoy the older part of the fanbase. Doubt it, but that always crosses my mind with modern devs.

I really like the Gears series. That said, I hope they wrap it up with Gears 6 and move on. Six games (seven if you count Judgement, which I don't) is enough.

I would like to see what The Coalition would do with a blank canvas.

In the first trilogy you knew what the game stood for, Delta squad were a bunch of macho men fighting for freedom against the constant onslaught from alien creatures, the game was dark , atmospheric and full of doom.
The latter 4 & 5 are ok games but have become all things to all players and in its quest to be more inclusive the ip has lost its gritty, dark menacing way that made it fun to play.

@Gamer83 I totally get that...writers that come into established stories sometimes like tearing down what came before in order to make their mark. The only way we'll find out is when they decide to release Gears 6. I'm guessing 6/6/2026 at this point?

@stinkyx
I'm hoping sometime in 2025 at the latest. Would really like it to release this year but that might not be possible.