Welcome to What’s Up, your weekly update on all the latest news, game updates and more in Gears 5 and beyond.

Here’s What’s Up in Gears this week:

Gearsmas continues with added Free Boost Days

Arcade Blitz Double Trouble

Escape Hive: The Detour

Weekly Store for Dec 24 and 31st

GEARSMAS CONTINUES!

Gearsmas is well underway in Gears 5 (we’ve had a blast taking on Jingle Juvies!) and we hope you’ve had a blast getting festive the only way Gears know how.

If you haven’t jumped in yet, you can get the full details on Gearsmas here. If you need it short and sweet, here’s the key dates you need to remember as you head into the Holidays including two added days of Free Boost:

Earnable Content and Jingle Juvies: Available until Jan 2 nd , 2020

, 2020 Login Reward Pack: Available until Jan 2 nd , 2020

, 2020 Free Boost Days: December 25th, 26th, 31st and Jan 1st 2020

ARCADE BLITZ DOUBLE TROUBLE

We’re kicking off the New Year with some fireworks of our own in our next Versus Special Event beginning January 2nd – Arcade Blitz Double Trouble!

Arcade Double Trouble turns up the insanity by offering double the usual skull gains which means more weapons, more often! Combined with the ring-focused mayhem of Arcade Blitz, expect a ton of explosions and insane action from the off.

For those Tour of Duty Medal Hunters out there, this playlist will be a hotbed of Arcade Medal Progress – especially for the medals requiring you to use a certain Character’s weapons accessed with a higher number of Skulls.

Arcade Blitz Double Trouble begins as our latest Featured Playlist on January 2nd 2020.

ESCAPE HIVE: THE DETOUR

In case you missed this last week, this week’s new Featured Escape Hive will be The Detour after the date change to accommodate a two week Featured period for each Hive in Operation 2.

In the Detour, you’ll need to head down an increasingly tough corridor of doom in a perilous first act with multiple exits and endless enemies.

The further you make it down the hallway before exiting the act, the more COG tags and better equipment you’ll gain. How far can you make it?

WEEKLY STORE

With the studio taking a break for the Holidays, this week we’ve got a double header preview of the next two weeks for the Store.

December 24th – 30th

Hivebuster Marcus Character Skin

Helmetless Warden Character Skin

Neon Glow Loadout Weapon Skin Set

Hivebuster Marcus Character Skin – 500 Iron

Neon Glow Loadout Weapon Skin Set – 500 Iron

Helmetless Warden Character Skin – 250 Iron

Omen Pixel Art Banner – 100 Iron

Snowflake Mark – 50 Iron

The Gearsmas Store content (Nutcracker Shepherd and the Wrapping Paper Full Weapon Skin set) will also still be available through the temporary Gearsmas Store Tab until January 2, 2020.

December 31st – January 6th 2020

Motor Pool Lizzie Character Skin

Pixelated Full Weapon Skin Set

Motor Pool Lizzie Character Skin* – 500 Iron

Neon Glow Power Weapon Skin Set – 500 Iron

Pixelated Full Weapon Skin Set – 300 Iron

COG Gear Corpse Character Skin* – 250 Iron

Speech Bubble Mark – 50 Iron

*Reminder: Purchasing a Character Skin does not include access to the Character. Use of Character Skins requires the base Character to be unlocked before associated skins can be used.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR

And that’s it – it’s time to sign off our last What’s Up of the year until January 6th, 2020.

As we look back on 2019, the year we launched our biggest Gears game ever, we can’t say anything more than thank you. Seeing your reactions to the Campaign, your stories about your best MP moments and your feedback – positive and negative – drives us every day.

Over the past few months, we’ve been working hard to bring you new exciting features and content as we continue to iterate on Gears 5. We still have plenty of work underway to improve features you care about, address your feedback and deliver new content that keep Gears 5 vibrant and exciting.

Next up, in January, we’ll have a further fixes and improvements with TU4, the arrival of the Kantus Character, Ranked Free For All and the return of OSOK in a brand new format. We think you’ll love this one.

From all of us here at the studio, we hope you have a great Gearsmas and we’ll see you in 2020!

TC, out.