I can’t tell you how many hours my friends and I poured into the Gears of War series. It was one of my favorite franchises back on the Xbox 360, maybe even my favorite, but I can’t seem to muster up much excitement for Gears of War 4.

Everything The Coalition has shown for Gears of War 4, so far, is pretty much what I expect from the series…and that may not be a good thing. The game looks solid, don’t get me wrong. Graphically it looks fantastic, and the gameplay looks as sharp as ever, but there’s something about Gears of War 4 that just doesn’t excite me like I thought it would.

Maybe it’s the fact that the development team has chosen to play it safe and go back towards the game’s more dark/horror tone that the first Gears of War game had. Or maybe it’s their lackluster campaign demos they’ve shown off for the game that have done very little to impress outside of the impressive weather effects that affect the gameplay in a number of ways. I can’t really pinpoint what exactly is keeping me from being excited about the game, but there’s something missing and other’s are echoing the same sentiment.

I’m hoping that The Coalition is saving the best parts about Gears of War 4‘s campaign for when the game releases, but when we see E3 trailers/demos, we’ve come to expect developers to show us something exciting and new. So for what we’ve seen from Gears of War 4 is really just more of the same, and even the story is retreading similar ground. The gameplay video released yesterday has players on a mission to save Kat’s mother after being abducted by the Swarm. To put it simply, it all seems a tad uninspired.

I’m not all doom and gloom on Gears of War 4 though, so don’t take this editorial as me saying the game isn’t going to be good. I’m actually very happy to see The Coalition holding their cards close to their chest regarding story details as they’ve previously stated Gears of War 4 would be a much more intimate story than what we’ve come to expect from the series. I’m super excited about that, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say the game looks very impressive.

The core gameplay has also been refined and kept true to form following the pinnacle of the series, Gears of War 3. Some of the mechanics missing from Gears of War: UE that were present in 3 are very, very noticeable. You can’t ask for much more than that from a sequel on a gameplay perspective, and I’m sure Gears of War 4 will be fun to play, regardless if it does much to impress. I just hope The Coalition at least gives us a glimpse at something from the campaign that seems a bit less generic before its release on the 11th of October.

The opinions in this editorial are the author’s and do not represent OnlySP as an organization.

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