Gears of War 4 (Xbox One)
After an exceptional trilogy of games and a uniquely interesting spin-off, Epic Games seemed fairly content with their work on the Gears of War franchise. While development did begun under their supervision for a fourth game in the series, the company seemed to be ready to move onto the next big thing, but Microsoft wasn’t willing to lose what might be the Xbox 360’s definitive game series. With the Xbox One on the horizon, Microsoft purchased full rights to the Gears of War franchise and put a new team to work on continuing the franchise from where it left off. However, after a rather definitive conclusion to the Locust threat in Gears of War 3, the developers were going to have to decide how to continue the story moving forward while also trying to bring something new to the franchise to help prevent stagnation and justify its continuation. There was a lot of pressure on new developer The Coalition to make something worthy of the Gears of War name, and while it certainly feels like it settles into the series fairly well, it is certainly interesting to see where the new blood was willing to be bold and where they stuck to the tried and true.
Perhaps appropriately, Gears of War 4 does not follow the same few characters we’ve become familiar with across four different titles, but instead follows a new generation wrapped up in the newest threat endangering the Earth-like planet of Sera. Over two decades after the elimination of the Locust threat at the end of Gears of War 3, The Coalition of Ordered Governments has reformed and begun rebuilding the world. However, the lingering scars of a grueling, nearly apocalyptic war have lead to them building regimented cities with strict rules, causing many who want to live simpler, stress-free lives to renounce these squeaky clean settlements in favor of more naturalistic living as Outsiders. They still need the advanced technology the COG has though, and so we are introduced to our core cast as they seek to pilfer a weapons fabricator for their Outsider group. JD is the main character now, the son of Marcus Fenix being a somewhat generic hero type, with Kait bringing a bit more sarcasm and anger into the affair, and rightly so once her mother being captured becomes a key plot point driving the adventure. Their friend Del perhaps has the most pronounced personality of the group and actually draws out more humorous and character-filled exchanges with his two companions, his trepidation making him seem like he’s in over his head but his tone making it more amusing than annoying. These three characters stick with you for most of the main campaign and run into other characters along the way such as the much older versions of familiar faces from the older games, the retired Marcus Fenix having his powerful anger dimmed into a grumpy but still fiery persona when the situation is right. You might not find this main trio as endearing as some of the old guard and they don’t have as many moments of emotional resonance since one of the few dramatic moments didn’t work hard to establish the emotional connection beforehand, but they can grow on you through their small conversations along the way.
There are actually two main forces the trio and their allies will go up against in this title, the first one being the DeeBees that the COG deploys to suppress anyone who acts against them. Deployed by the somewhat generically authoritarian Mina Jinn, these robotic soldiers are a stark departure from the mutated humanoids that were the Locusts, able to take more hits and moving with the stiffness you’d expect of automatons. The basic Shepherd unit uses weapons, but rather than just mirroring the options the player has access to, these machines come wielding unique twists to the typical arsenal, defeating them often the only way to acquire these specialized tools. The Enforcer is a wildly inaccurate submachine gun if you hold down the trigger, but it can put out more shots than most of the other weapon options in the game if used properly. The EMBAR is a railgun that can fire a strong projectile almost like a sniper shot, but with no scope and a charge that disappears if you don’t fire it, the strength comes with the caveat it must be fired quickly. The Overkill is a fast-firing shotgun with a range advantage over the generic Gnasher shotgun, but since the Gnasher can blow people apart to bloody chunks if you move in a little closer while the Overkill can struggle to kill at the same range, it’s not quite the upgrade you’d hope it to be. The DeeBees aren’t just defined by these new weapon types either, as the flying Guardians have energy shields that must be worn down while they use powerful rockets and chainguns to tear you apart, the Trackers roll across the area before detonating in close range, and the sturdy DR-1 models will perform suicidal charges when defeated so they can self-destruct and take you down with them.
The robotic nature of the DeeBees do mean that sometimes fights with them can start to feel like you’re not exactly fighting the smartest soldiers, but soon the game whips out the new real threat you’ll be dealing with: The Swarm. The Swarm are, admittedly, the Locusts with a new coat of paint. The game spends a lot of time trying to both say these aren’t the Locust again while emphasizing their similarities and their origins as a new species evolved from the Locust, although hearing JD, Del, and Kait discuss names for these newly discovered enemies and how they might exist is an interesting approach to introducing a new threat while also rather silly with how they reach certain conclusions. They are a good continuation of Locust design sensibilities though, bringing over much of what made them good villains while toying with new monster concepts. Your typical Drone will use the regular weapon set most often available to the player to engage in third-person cover shooting battles, with Scions being the tougher versions who wield heavy weaponry, take a lot of punishment to put down, and can even enhance nearby Drones with their special ability. Juvies are small, scrambling creatures who rush you in numbers to make up for their fragility, and the Pouncers actually interact with cover in an interesting way by leaping across the top of it as they fling quills at you while trying to hide their vulnerable bellies. There are a few boss Swarm monsters as well, some sadly as lazy as taking the gigantic Brumak from the Locust and covering them in crystals and welts to make a new big monster, but the Swarm mostly slot right in as a good new enemy who delivers on challenging gunfights with good enemy and weapon variety, and with the mix of DeeBees thrown in as well, you certainly have a strong batch of foes to make the story mode more exciting.
Strangely enough though, the story seems to wrap up with a lot of aspects left up in the air. You accomplish some of your goals, but there is no resolution in regards to dealing a heavy blow to the burgeoning Swarm forces, your relationship with the COG still feels like it needs exploration, and the final chapter is a rather straightforward boss encounter rather than a dramatic climax. However, while this game is certainly banking on continuing its tale with a sequel, its campaign still has plenty of interesting set pieces to keep the variety in locations fresh. A hydroelectric dam, an ancient fort, an underground mine, and a city of the future still under construction all provide the setting variety needed to ensure level topography and aesthetics remain varied, and a greater color pallet than older titles means shooting allies by mistake is less likely. Carried over from Gears of War: Judgment are the defense sections where huge waves of enemies will attack you while you’re defending a position, the player able to build defenses to help with these huge surges of well-equipped foes. Windflares are an interesting addition to certain chapters if a bit overused, certain chapters involving an immense storm throwing off the paths off bullets, making frag grenades harder to toss, and even sending out crawling lightning or hurling debris about during fire fights. These ask for a different approach than regular combat, but the game leans on them a little too much and they start to lose their luster when it feels like they’re cropping up every few chapters. One interesting aspect of the campaign level design though is, for the first time since Gears of War 2, they are experimenting with the way cover can be designed. In addition to waist high walls, crates, and pillars, you can now hunker behind large red eggs that will burst into Juvies if they’re shot too much. One portion of the game features large metal chains that rise and fall, killing anything they crush but serving as the only cover in that particular gun fight. You can now fluidly jump across cover if you do your hunkered down roadie run towards it, kicking anyone on the other side who might be hiding. If you’re on the other side of cover as a foe, you can also just reach over and yank them to your side for a quick knife kill as well.
While adding new cover types is a nifty push in the right direction, making cover have more interactivity than just hiding behind it to avoid bullets is the real highlight of these new ideas. Already Gears of War 4 encourages aggressive pushes with the series’s usual approach to combat. When you take damage a symbol appears on screen to alert you to how close to dying you are, the player able to seek cover and heal up that damage if they avoid injury for long enough. Both sides of a firefight often have high damage output with any weapon they’re using well, but if you can manage your movement and cover well, you can get in and land your heavy hits before you’re torn to shreds yourself, and if you’re playing with allies, they can revive you after you’re knocked down so long as they do so quickly and before any executions occur. Aggression is rewarded with quick, snappy kills that often have plenty of blood spray about while the bodies splatter into chunks, but being out in the open or not utilizing cover properly will lead to you being the one blasted to pieces. Active reload helps to keep up the game’s high octane pace as well, the player able to reload their weapons more quickly if they can accurately time a second button press based on a reload meter.
Outside of the DeeBee weaponry, Gears of War 4 has plenty of other weapon options for both campaign and multiplayer modes. The Lancer assault rifle brings its trademark chainsaw muzzle for instantly carving foes apart while also being fairly accurate for a machine gun. The Hammerburst brings strong burst fire to the automatic weapon pool, but the Markza sniper rifle from Gears of War: Judgment has been bumped down to a rifle with no scope but strong shots if aimed well. The Longshot sniper provides the most traditional long range killer bullets with accuracy being even more important, the Torque Bow gives you a long range explosive that can instantly blow apart anyone if you can manage its unique aiming style, and the Dropshot feels like an improved version of the Digger in that now it flies over rather than tunnels under cover and you can activate the explosive whenever you please just by releasing the trigger after firing it. Heavy duty weapons can’t be carried between areas too well, but if you get a Mulcher minigun you can easily tear through foes with rapid fire and the new Buzzkill shoots spinning sawblades that ricochet off walls and easily sever limbs and slice through necks. While the DeeBee weapons all feel a little less effective than these other options, Gears of War 4 still manages to bring the power even with its pistol options, weapons featuring satisfying sound design, high damage outputs, and a decent variety in utility to keep the guns enjoyable for hours upon hours of play.
Outside of potentially playing the campaign cooperatively, Gears of War 4 naturally continues the series’s emphasis on high quality competitive multiplayer. Execution and Warzone have two teams duke it out with each player only having one life, meaning the aggressive play encouraged must also be balanced with the risk of immediate elimination in Warzone or elimination after an execution is performed in the appropriately titled Execution mode. Dodgeball is a strange but interesting variation to this one life style of play, with killing an enemy team member allowing you to revive a deceased teammate. Guardian turns the Warzone style of play into one where a VIP player has one life and must be protected or else the others will lose their ability to respawn on death, allowing strategic sacrifices while emphasizing the need to survive. Team Deathmatch is a straightforward race to reach the indicated amount of kills with the help of your team, although removing the importance of survival also means less strategy feels required. King of the Hill and Escalation both have control points you need to capture to discourage careless play as the areas will fall into enemy hands if you aren’t smart about how you approach and hold these locations. Arms Race is a fun new play style thrown in to cap off the competitive mode options, the Team Deathmatch approach now changed so each team needs to earn three kills per weapon, forced to only use one type until they can earn those kills and move onto the next one in the progression. Survival is still vital here despite the focus on earning kills because a death can cause the enemy team to switch to an even more powerful weapon, and being forced to adjust your strategy with each weapon shift keeps this mode rather dynamic.
The last major mode in Gears of War 4 is Horde mode, which takes the defense segments from the story mode and fleshes them out into incredibly challenging area defenses. Each player selects a specialized class to help in their defense against waves of foes, the player able to unlock more perks by playing regularly. Some like the Engineer focus on the defenses, the Sniper is useful for taking out the toughest of enemy forces, and of course you have something like the standard Soldier class to ensure a regular damage output despite not having the benefits increased specialization would grant. With the enemy and weapon variety plus progression rewards and player classes, Horde mode is easy to sink a lot of time into despite its challenge, and that thrill of just squeaking by the more absurd groupings of enemy types that nearly wiped you out makes this a blood-pumping mode that adds a good bit of diversity to how you play this cover shooter.
THE VERDICT: Gears of War 4 may have an inconclusive plot, two rather generic leading characters, and a bit too many Windflares, but this continuation of the franchise still brings plenty of new ideas to help build off the already exceptional Gears of War gunplay. The aggressive play style encouraged by the health recovery is balanced out by incredible weapon strength, the multiplayer modes are structured to utilize it well, and the area layouts are a good fit for involved and diverse firefights. The Swarm and DeeBees blend together into good enemy opposition and work well with new concepts for cover and weaponry, so while it might not hit some beats as strongly as previous entries, it still has plenty of action to offer to scratch the same high octane action shooter itch.
And so, I give Gears of War 4 for Xbox One…
A GREAT rating. Gears of War 4 comes in swinging with new characters, weapons, and concepts, and while it lands plenty of hits thanks to intelligently building off the tried and true mechanics it can lean on, it does feel like a bit more heart could be put into the main characters and their journey. The campaign wraps up at an odd stopping point and leans a little hard on certain ideas like the Windflares, but it still packs in plenty of enemy variety even if it is easy to see some of these are reheated Locust concepts. The new Swarm monsters like the Pouncers, the DeeBee robots, the unique cover mechanics, and a good selection of new killing implements still show that despite being unable to break away from the original enemies of the Gears of War series entirely, The Coalition is certainly skilled at building off of the already established ideas in new and interesting ways. Thrilling multiplayer modes, strong defense play in select single-player chapters and Horde mode, and a good mix of setpieces and amusing conversations in the campaign ensure this game has plenty to offer despite certain retreads, and while the writing can use some punching up, this still seems like a strong enough direction to head in following the phenomenal original trilogy.
Gears of War 4 is a surprisingly smooth passing of the torch from Epic Games to The Coalition, and in some ways, it even surpasses Epic’s own Gears of War: Judgment (although not bringing back the Declassified missions feels like a missed opportunity). With a stronger writing team Gears of War 4 could have very well risen up to the same level of excellence 2 and 3 hit, and it didn’t rest on the series’s laurels either in bringing in some new ideas for how to shift around the incredibly solid gunplay the series is known for. Gears of War 4 is the start of a new generation of Gears games, and if the narrative creativity can be brought up to par with the imagination shown in how the gameplay has evolved, then this new age for the series could continue to rise in quality after its already excellent start.