A new director picks up years later where the revered original creator left off. An iconic but now-aged hero plays a prominent role, comforting old fans and tugging on their nostalgic heartstrings for much of the story while passing the torch to a new generation of heroes. The plot structure follows many of the same recognizable beats of the tale that started it all, and by the end you’ve been on a great ride that is both familiar and new at the same time.

see deal Gears of War 4 - Xbox One $39.99 on Gamestop

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“ The new DeeBee and Swarm enemies require welcome new offensive and defensive strategies to combat them.

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“ Variety is a welcome pillar of its eight-hour trek.

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“ Gears 4’s most graphically impressive moments are tied to the weather.

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PC Version Update

No, I’m not talking about Star Wars Episode VII, though there are a number of interesting (if coincidental) similarities between it and the approach Microsoft’s taken to its first internally developed Gears of War game. Gears of War 4 Reyna Diaz in place of Dominic Santiago’s wife Maria.That’s not to say Gears of War 4 doesn’t bring new elements to the series’ cover-based shooting formula. On the campaign side, the new DeeBee robot enemies and Seran Swarm foes attack differently than their Locust predecessors, thus requiring welcome new offensive and defensive strategies to combat them. For instance, the larger Heavy DeeBee jump-jets over cover and self-destructs when it takes enough damage, while the skybound, front-shielded Guardian is best flanked from multiple sides in order to expose its weak spots. And the Swarm’s Pouncer flings deadly quills from its tail and hops on top of cover, pinning you to the ground like a Hobbes from Hell if you stay in one place for too long. All of these put a lot more pressure on you than ever before in a Gears game, and are especially inviting for challenge-seekers playing on higher difficulty levels.Design-wise, the new Gears campaign succeeds thanks to stellar execution of a focused game plan. Variety is a welcome pillar of its eight-hour trek, as, aside from one exception in Act IV, you’re never in one place doing the same thing for too long. Gears 4’s campaign – playable in two-player split-screen or online co-op (and even supports cross-platform play with the PC version) – packs several gameplay styles, including a few thematically appropriate instances of Horde mode along with a couple other enjoyable changes of pace. (A friendly suggestion: do not watch the Gears of War 4 Launch Trailer; it gives away a few of the campaign’s fun gameplay surprises.) And laudably, Gears 4 never relies on the annoying design trope of requiring you to run a frustrating gauntlet through large groups of the toughest enemies you’ve already fought individually in order to reach its conclusion; it’s got a much smarter endgame up its sleeve.Like its fellow first-party mainstay Halo, Gears of War’s campaign has always been complemented by great multiplayer. That hasn’t changed with Gears of War 4. Both Versus and Horde, like campaign, have evolved rather than been reinvented, with predictably fun results. Gears multiplayer has always managed a brilliant balance of tactics and fast action to go with its borderline-cartoonish violence, giving it standout appeal over the glut of other multiplayer shooters. Gears 4 brings 10 maps and plenty of modes – most of which are great, tried-and-true staples from other games or previous Gears entries. A standout is Arms Race, which is basically Call of Duty’s Gun Game, in which each team in a races to get three kills each with every weapon in a certain order. It works just as well here. Escalation, aka Domination or Territories, on the other hand, simply drags on far too long as a best-of-13-round duel. If Gears 4 were patched to cut that in half, Escalation would join the other modes in the winner’s circle. Meanwhile, the now-expected private-match customizability also grants Versus plenty of staying power to play exactly how you want.The five-player Horde mode , however, is once again where Gears’ multiplayer shines brightest. The tower-defense elements introduced in Gears 3 have been iterated on for the better here. Killed enemies drop resource chits that must be collected and brought back to your Fabricator – your mobile emplacement builder, basically – and deposited into a team-shared pool used to erect fences, sentries, turrets, and more as you fight through 50 waves of DeeBee and Swarm foes. Every tenth wave brings out a random boss to contend with, such as the Snatcher, who steals downed allies and carries them away, or the Kestrel, an attack helicopter who forces you to change your eye level. And a new class system emphasizes teamwork by encouraging specialized roles that grant specific action bonuses. For example, the Engineer is more lightly armed but can repair damaged emplacements. My group’s best run ended at wave 42, and we immediately jumped back in for more. So expect many hours of replayable fun with your friends.After spending time with the PC version (included free with digital purchase of the Xbox One version, and vice versa), I'm happy to report that performance is buttery smooth – my GTX 970-powered PC never dipped below 60fps, and it would've been consistently higher if not for the refresh-rate limitations of my aging monitor. Keyboard-and-mouse controls feel great and are as configurable as you'd expect from a PC game, with only the default binding of the gamepad's A-button functionality set to the spacebar annoying me enough to want to re-bind it to the left shift key. Cross-play is completely seamless – I played Horde on Xbox One with two PC teammates (marked as such by a monitor icon next to their gamertag in the lobby) and two console teammates, and both progress and achievements carry over to either version. Aside from 4K resolution, which I wasn't able to test, the PC version's biggest draw is a 60fps campaign, which is capped at 30fps on the Xbox One. It's not a problem at all on console, but it's noticeably smoother on a capable PC.