Today, a number of people across the country obtained access to a test build for “Gears of War” on the Xbox One, as shown in the screenshot above. Although we suspected it might be part of an as-of-yet-unannounced Gears collection including a number of games in the series, this may in fact just be a remaster of the first Gears of War game, if a new Polygon report is accurate.




Polygon reports that Microsoft and developer Black Tusk are, as expected, remastering Gears of War for the Xbox One, and they say they’ve seen screenshots from a remastered version of the opening cinematic in the original Gears of War, which was released for the Xbox 360 in 2006. What we don’t know is whether this will be a standalone remaster or part of a bigger compilation, like the Halo: Master Chief Collection that Microsoft released last year.

Rumors of a Gears collection have been floating around for quite some time now, ever since Microsoft purchased the franchise and announced plans to make a new entry with their subsidiary studio Black Tusk. What would be surprising, however, is if Microsoft and Black Tusk only remastered the first entry in the series.


We hear this Gears test build will go live tonight around 9pm Eastern, so we should know more then. Microsoft has yet to respond to Kotaku’s requests for comment.

UPDATE (9:10pm): It’s real. Three different people playing tonight’s test build tell us that it’s just the first Gears of War. This test build is multiplayer-only, featuring the following modes: Team Deathmatch; King of the Hill; 1 Life 1V1 Shotgun TDM; 1v1 Sudden Death Gnashers Only; 4v4 TDM Single Round; and 4v4 KOTH Single Round.

You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.