With the upcoming Gears 5, developer The Coalition says it’s taking the proverbial gloves off. Gears of War 4 was moderately successful, but also criticized for playing things too safe. The Coalition heard those complaints loud and clear, and thus Gears 5 is being made to push the envelope.
Gears 5 Won’t Play It Safe
In a recent interview with Kotaku, Coalition head Rod Fergusson talked about the lessons learned from Gears of War 4. For the fourth numbered installment, The Coalition didn’t want to deviate too much from the core Gears formula. It was a sound strategy considering Gears of War 4 was the very first Gears game under The Coalition’s purview. The first three numbered entries had been made by Fergusson’s previous employer, Epic Games.
However, fan reactions to Gears of War 4 made it clear that the game felt a little too safe. There wasn’t enough gameplay innovation to make it stand out from its predecessors. The Coalition didn’t want to alienate existing Gears fans, but it wound up over-correcting as a result. With Gears 5, Fergusson promises things will be different. From story to gameplay, the upcoming fifth numbered entry promises to radically shake up player expectations.
One of the most noticeable changes involves the shift in story mode perspective. In Gears of War 4, players controlled J.D. Fenix, son of Gears of War mainstay Marcus Fenix. In Gear 5, players will instead control Kait Diaz, one of J.D.’s allies and friends. Gears of War 4’s ending included a surprise revelation involving Kait’s past. That revelation (and its implications) will be a central theme of Gears 5’s story.
Additional Details
The Kotaku interview also revealed several other details about how Gears 5 will shake things up, including the following:
- The story campaign will support up to three-player co-op
- Melee combat is being tweaked to promote versatility and ease of use
- Players will no longer hold down the B button to perform a chainsaw bayonet rev. Instead, they’ll hold down the right bumper. This frees up the player’s right thumb, allowing them to control the camera while they rev their chainsaw.
- Enemies will now have visible health bars to give players additional visual feedback. Purists can disable the health bars if they prefer.
- Gear 5 will have five core modes of play: Story, Horde, Versus, Escape, and an Escape map-building suite.
The full Kotaku interview is worth reading if you felt Gears of War 4 felt just a little too tame. Gears 5 will launch later this year on September 10. One of the game’s new enemy types will be the pack-hunting Swarm Leeches.