Gears 5 review: Stunning gunning

The original Gears of War was a watershed title for Microsoft back in 2006. It kicked off a big-money exclusive franchise and was the first big technical showcase of the Xbox 360’s hardware capabilities. Its third-person shooter mechanics spawned a generation of imitators and established genre tropes that would define its generation. Nearly fifteen years later and under the direction of a different studio, Gears 5 aims to chart a new course for the series on the back of an expanded campaign and a masterclass in technical achievement. While it is held back from immortality by sticking too close to its roots, Gears 5 is the most complete package in series history and a must-play for fans of the franchise.

The devil inside

Gears 5 drops players into the action directly following the events of Gears of War 4, which saw a new generation of Gears led by JD Fenix, son of series mascot Marcus Fenix. In that game, the good guys ran up against a fiendish opponent known as the Swarm while simultaneously rebelling against the COG government that employed the series original collection of heroes. Gears 5 opens with the younger crew working to protect the citizens of the mining planet Sera from the swarm when tragedy causes a fracture in the group’s relationship.

The bulk of the campaign in Gears 5 directly follows Kait Diaz, the daughter of Reyna Diaz, the former leader of the human rebellion against the fascist COG leadership. Kait fights for the COG army despite her heritage because she believes it to be the best chance to save lives on Sera. She has a special connection to the Swarm due to events from the previous game, leading to distrust among the core Gears protagonists, but this connection puts Kait at the center of events in Gears 5. Along with fellow Gear Del Walker, Kait sets out on a field trip around Sera to get the Hammer of Dawn, a satellite-based superweapon, back online to help combat the Swarm threat.

Expanding the scope

Kait and crew battle across various environments and climates during the campaign, including a frozen wasteland and a red-sand desert near the border of the COG-occupied zone. While much of the campaign progresses in the linear fashion that the franchise is known for, Gears 5 opts to evolve and expand the design of its single-player component by offering semi-open world sections that make up the second and third of its four acts. These areas allow the player to pick and choose between following the main narrative path of the campaign or taking a detour into optional secondary objectives.

Traversal of these open areas is handled by a metal-frame sled attached to a large sail. Kait and crew harness the power of the constant wind storms that plague Sera to zoom around the campaign’s open-ended map sections. These areas are much bigger than anything previously seen in the franchise and sledding around them feels good. Primary and secondary objectives are pretty evenly spread around the map. Approaching one of these objectives requires temporarily ditching the sled and entering a closed-off mission area. Entry to these sections is usually blocked by a small entryway, door, or large drop that effectively hides a load screen, helping to make the transition from the open map to mission feel more seamless.

The side missions themselves are very short in practice and don’t add a whole lot beyond offering areas to find more collectibles that help expand the lore or to reward diligent players with upgrades to Jack, the campaign’s robot co-pilot. Despite not offering much in the way of gameplay, these areas all feature incredibly detailed interiors and level design that looks as good and immersive as any part of the mainline missions.

The campaign has you battle hordes of Swarm, Locust, and corrupted COG robot enemies across a variety of areas with some boss encounters and the occasional “on-rails” section tossed in for variety. Outside of the open sections in the middle acts, the structure is nothing new to the Gears of War series, but the pacing of the encounters and direction of the cutscenes is all top-notch. There is never a dull moment from the opening of the game until the credits roll. Additionally, the entire thing can be played in co-op with up to three people, with two players controlling Kait and Del and the third operating Jack the robot. Jack’s ever-growing arsenal helps to keep the experience from becoming a never-ending sequence of hacking consoles or unlocking doors. The co-op campaign can be handled entirely online or via local split-screen (even on PC!). 

War never changes

The gameplay loop for Gears 5 is going to be very familiar to anyone who had previously played a game in the series. Most encounters are in medium-sized rooms or arenas full of pillars or chest-high walls that serve as anchor points for the cover-based gunplay. Traversing these areas in a hectic firefight feels exactly like it did in 2006, with up-close combat being nearly unmanageable and long-range encounters being tough without proper weaponry. 

Like I did with the first Gears game, I often grew frustrated trying to affix and detach my human in giant cartoon armor from pieces of level geometry. It is possible that the game is designed this way to simulate operating in such restrictive outfits, but in 2019, it feels dated when compared to other, more-recent cover shooters like The Division. Much in the way that I could never find myself completely falling into this year’s Resident Evil 2 remake due to its adherence to aging conventions, struggling with positioning and invisible obstructions repeatedly pulled me out of the immersion that Gears 5 works hard to establish.

The gun selection in Gears 5 is generally strong all around, with the series-staple Lancer being a solid weapon for all situations and the remaining cast all serving situational purposes. You can usually drag your favorite guns from encounter to encounter if you don’t waste too much ammo. Aiming in the PC version of the game works wonderfully, as I was able to easily land headshots with the Markza MK1, my personal favorite.

Always better with friends

Gears 5 offers a few different ways to satisfy players who complete the campaign mode. The typical versus modes are available here, offering straight deathmatch and teamplay modes. You can level up your characters, allowing for the use of boost cards and unlocking cosmetics. You earn points for playing and can spend them on new gear, or opt to open the checkbook if you don’t feel like playing for them. While these microtransactions are in the game, none of the modes I encountered felt like they were designed to push players towards them, which sadly counts as a plus for a AAA game in 2019.

An all-new mode called Escape is also available, dumping three players into danger by asking them to deliver poison gas into a Swarm compound. Once planted, the trio must escape the complex to complete the mission. Predictably, players will encounter opposition in the form of mixes from the entire roster of campaign baddies as well as the gradual onslaught of the poison gas that seeps through the level. There are safe rooms to gather your breath, but the mode remains hectic at all times. The characters each have a special class and a unique ability to help navigate the ocean of bad guys. Players can level these characters and apply unlocked cards prior to subsequent rounds, much the same as in Versus mode. Gears 5 also includes a level editor for Escape mode that allows for custom maps built using tiles in a top-down view editor. Each tile and enemy spends some of the custom level budget, so that levels can be easily swapped and shared between friends and other random folks online.

Finally, Horde mode returns in Gears 5 with a few new twists. Up to five players drop into a Horde level and must clear increasingly tougher waves of enemies. The team is given a fabricator at the start to use for buying ammunition, barricades, and other helpful structures. Each of the selectable characters has a unique ultimate that can change the tide of a difficult wave. The leveling and card systems also come into play with Horde mode, offering progression for those who plan on replaying often. I had the most fun with Horde mode during my review period and cannot wait to drag my scrub friends through wave after wave and then yell at them for being noobs when we lose.

The sights and the sounds

No beating around the bush here — Gears 5 is arguably the best-looking video game ever released. Making use of all the latest graphical tricks (save for ray-tracing), everything you see in the game looks like a million bucks. The hero character models are insanely detailed and are incredibly sharp (particularly with the optional 4K texture pack available for the PC version). The wide variety of uglies you do battle against have their own unique designs and represent the best I’ve yet to see in a video game. The sub-surface scattering helps human and Locust skin look incredibly lifelike during closeups. Geas 5 has the best-looking object motion blur ever seen in a game and it is applied to nearly all objects you see, creating the smoothest, cleanest looking motion in all situations. Whether you play at 60Hz or 144Hz, the experience is second to none, with Swarm attacks and cutscene action leaving my jaw on the floor more than once.

The quality of the lighting allows for awe-inspiring transitions between outdoor vistas and murky, abandoned interiors. There are particle effects spraying all over the screen during most battles while the trees and other environmental objects take a constant whipping from the enormous windstorms of the planet Sera. Gears 5 also has one of the most beautiful implementations of HDR I’ve seen to date (this is becoming a trend with Microsoft’s flagship titles). Lights from control panels and character armor stand out strongly from the shadows and the sand dunes of the third act will leave your display awash with vibrant crimson hues. Subterranean ice caverns host an array of lavish blue tones and the burning embers of collapse buildings come to life. If you’ve been waiting for an excuse to upgrade your television or monitor, this is the game to show it off. Audio nuts will be glad to see Dolby Atmos support to make use of the height channels in your surround setup or deluxe headphones.

Attention to detail

You only get one chance to make a first impression and every person at The Coalition who worked on this game must have had this mantra tattooed on their eyelids. As a long-time PC player, I am used to shoddy ports, games launching with bugs, 1.0 launches that should’ve been labeled “Early Access”, and worse. I’m having a hard time recalling any game I’ve launched for the first time offering up such a striking and polished experience. From the opening studio logo cinematics to the final roll of the credits, Gears 5 feels like the product of painstaking attention to detail, rivaling the best console-exclusive experiences, and possibly approaching Nintendo first-party quality.

From the inclusion of two different story cinematics to introduce new players or refresh the minds of returning players to the outstanding array of options, the front-end of Gears 5 sets the standard. For the first time I've seen, the game offers new users the option to enter a setup wizard for Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller, as well as the single best HDR and brightness calibration tool I’ve seen in any game and a responsive options menu that covers all bases.

PC hardware enthusiasts and novices are going to find lots to love with the graphics settings menu in Gears 5. Every single option is explained and the individual graphics settings toggles for quality are accompanied by a fullscreen image that shows exactly what each step of the setting brings to a real scene from the game. If you have average or below hardware, identifying the settings you can live with turning down has never been easier. The game also offers “Insane” options for some of its graphical features that push image quality through the roof. You can even choose to toggle frame rates for in-engine cutscenes, allow perfect transitions from exposition to gameplay.

If you have no desire to ever fiddle with toggles, The Coalition has you covered. It appears that all the work that went into ensuring the Xbox One X version of the game runs at a native 4K60Hz was also integrated into the PC version. By way of a setting called “Minimum Framerate,” users can simply select how fast they want the game to render at their chosen resolution and everything is taken care of. At all “Insane” settings on my GTX 1080 Ti, I am only able to get around 40 fps. When I use the magic framerate option, I got to enjoy Gears 5 at a rock-solid 60Hz in HDR with no perceptible loss in image quality, thanks to the dynamic resolution shifting. This option will allow your GPU to punch above its weight class and is by far the best implementation of this feature I’ve seen yet in a PC title.

Wrapping up

When Epic Games sold the Gears franchise to Microsoft a few years back, some fans worried if it would mean the end of the good times for the series. New developer The Coalition has taken up the task of continuing the series and brought it to new heights. If you never liked Gears of War before, this is not going to be the game to change your mind, as it sticks with the same formula, but does finally evolve the design in a positive way. If you were previously a Gears Stan, then this game is a must-buy. I was a bit put off by the game’s insistence on sticking to the same tired movement and environment traversal mechanics, but it does not cancel out all the other positives.

Arguably the best-looking game released this year, Gears 5 will appeal to graphics nuts and, along with Forza Horizon 4, is the clear showcase title for the Xbox One X. The PC version is even better, with uncapped frame rates, arbitrary resolution support, and enhanced graphical features. It is incredibly well-optimized, ensuring it will look good and run smoothly on a variety of hardware. Microsoft pledged to put a focus on its PC players and if Gears 5 is an indication of what is to come, mouse and keyboard jockeys are in for a treat. 9/10 doo-rags

This review is based on the PC Windows Store release. The game key was provided by the publisher. Gears 5 is available for Windows 10, Steam, and Xbox One on September 5 for Ultimate Edition owners and Game Pass subscribers. Standard edition buyers can start playing September 10 for $59.99. The game is rated Mature.

Chris Jarrard

Contributing Tech Editor

Chris Jarrard likes playing games, crankin' tunes, and looking for fights on obscure online message boards. He understands that breakfast food is the only true food. Don't @ him.