Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
While it could be argued that Gears 5 takes the award for Best Xbox One Game of 2019 due to a severe shortage of competition, it offers a compelling package worthy of your attention even if it were put up against a much stronger lineup of competitors. That said, Gears 5 really only went up against the monumentally disappointing Crackdown 3, so it gets to wear the green tiara.
The Coalition did a respectable job with 2017’s Gears of War 4 and took what they learned from that project to expand the scope of Gears 5. For the first time in series history, the campaign portion of the game allowed players the opportunity to attack objectives at their own pace and choosing within its middle chapters. For a franchise that has been criticized for linear campaigns, it was a nice first step towards evolving the experience. The return of Horde mode and the addition of the new Escape mode help to round out the multiplayer side of the package.
On the technical side of things, Gears 5 is a stunner. Arguably the best-looking game to grace the Xbox One this generation, it boasts state of the art textures, effects, and performance that shows what the console is capable of. Players of the PC version are treated to one of the best ports of all time, with arguably the best collection of settings and options ever to grace a PC game (as well as full support for the Xbox Adaptive Controller).
The astoundingly good dynamic resolution feature ensures that you get rock-solid performance, no matter what hardware is found in your PC. As of right now, Gears 5 offers up the pinnacle of rasterized graphics quality, sometimes matching the effects seen in the ray-traced game of the last two years. If you feel like shooting dudes with friends in one of the most beautiful games ever released, Gears 5 will be up your alley.