Microsoft and The Coalition have announced the first Title Update for Gears of War 4 is scheduled to release on November 1st, along with some highly-anticipated legacy multiplayer maps.

In addition to the release of both Checkout and Drydock to the Early Access Developer Playlist, which will contain Versus Dodgeball and Arms Race modes for teams of three and Horde on Normal difficulty, some tuning to a number of popular weapons are being made. The Gnasher seems to be getting the most love as not only has its stopping power been removed, its very short range damage has been slightly reduced, while its short range damage has been increased. As a result, its Active damage boost ratio has been slightly increased.

Additional tweaks have been made to the Lancer and Hammerburst. The Lancer’s very short range damage has been slightly reduced, while Hammerburst’s body damage has been significantly reduced in Core tuning. Headshot damage has been slightly reduced and its Active Reload cooldown has been decreased by two seconds.

The Coalition has also made some changes for both the Windows 10 and Xbox One versions of Gears of War 4. On the Windows 10 side, a number of keys can now be rebound, such as the Execute and Point of Interest keys and Spectator Mode controls. Xbox One owners can get a more beautiful view of the game as HDR Split-Screen Visualization options are now available while HDR calibration has been optimized for the platform. Some other tweaks being made across both platforms include cross-play support via LAN, bots being a bit more difficult in Social Versus backfilling, and removing the stacking of skills in Horde when players would revive one another.

Customer feedback appears to be the driving force behind future updates as The Coalition will make Future Community Holiday Event Packs accessible via in-game credits, possibly removing duplicate cards from appearing in packs that need it. PC Crossplay will also be tested in November, which will be a separate event playlist for those who want to take the fight across platforms. After the event takes place, the team will see what they can learn from it in order to possibly support it in future playlists.

There's a lot more being fixed in Gears of War 4's Title Update, so here's all of the changes that will be made on November 1st:

Title Update November 1 2016 
 
New Maps 
 
Two new maps will be added to the developer playlist on November 1st for Season Pass owners and will be available in standard rotation and private games on November 8th for everyone. 

• The Developer Playlist will contain Versus Dodgeball and Arms Race modes for squads up to three large and Horde players on Normal difficulty.

 
Weapon Tuning Changes 
(These changes may occur a few hours after the Title Update hits. We will update people once these go live.) 
 
We have made some changes to the Competitive Lancer and Gnasher. The goal was to try to smooth out the damage falloff to provide a more consistent feel, without sacrificing the skill.  
 
Lancer 

• Very short range damage has been slightly reduced.

Gnasher 

• Very short range damage slightly reduced.
• Short range damage slightly increased.
• Active damage boost ratio slightly increased to offset damage reduction.
• Stopping power completely removed.

Hammerburst body damage has been significantly reduced in Core tuning. Headshot damage has only been slightly reduced to maintain the skill of the weapon. 

• Body damage significantly reduced.
• Headshot damage slightly reduced.
• Active reload cooldown increased by 2 seconds.

Fixed an issue where Escalation weapon respawn timers would sometimes not be consistent 

• All secondary weapons (minus the Longshot) are at 60s respawns.
• The Longshot, Shock and Incendiary grenades are at 90s respawns.
• All power weapons are at 120s respawns.

Windows 10 
**Please make sure to update your Windows OS to Build 14393.222 or later for the game to update. You will not be able to get the update and online games will stop working if this is not done** 

• Execute and Point of Interest keys can now have the same key binding on Windows 10.
• Windows 10 version now displays the version number on main menu.
• Users can now rebind Spectator Mode controls on Windows 10.
• Abnormalities to the UI on high resolution displays have been addressed.
• Mouse and Keyboard users can now switch weapons during countdown at the beginning of the round.
• Windows 10 players can now have true offline LAN lobbies.
• Average FPS has been now incorporated to the benchmark screen on Windows 10.
• Added in game language selection.
• Roadie run turn rate on Windows 10 is now a consistent rate instead of reduced when holding the forward key.
• Pickup and drop fortifications has been moved to the “Q”/Mark Target key bind instead of “C”/Point of Interest on Windows 10.

Xbox One 

• Players can now turn on HDR Split-Screen Visualization in the options menu on Xbox One.
• HDR calibration has been optimized for Xbox One users.

Xbox One and Windows 10 

• Team Reviving with players on turrets no longer causes stacking skills in Horde.
• At times the gnasher would fire rounds that would not register or expend ammo despite audio and visual FX. This has been addressed.
• Ammo crates would sometimes not appear in TacCom in Horde. This has been corrected.
• Players who get a kill right after you die in Dodgeball will now be able to count toward a respawn for your team including yourself.
• Escalation will now display COG/SWARM DOMINATION when a victory was made from a Domination.
• The EMBAR at times could continuously be used in Arms Race after your team has switched to the next weapon. This has been addressed.
• Bonus supply crates will now fall in accessible areas even when the Fabricator is placed along walls.
• Users will no longer receive objectives in bounties by killing meat shields.
• Leader in Guardian will now always be rewarded to the user who killed the prior rounds Leader.
• Players should now be able to pick up all power drops in Horde.
• Players will no longer appear invisible if they are saved from a Snatcher.
• Players can no longer roadie run before countdown.
• Bots will be a bit more difficult in Social Versus backfilling
• Shock grenades will no longer auto refill after each Horde wave.
• Addressed an issue that sometimes allowed for Horde private matches to not start up.
• Fixed an issue in which flying enemies could drop power on high ground areas that were inaccessible by the player.
• Addressed an issue where players would sometimes not be able to play co-op campaign with another friend.
• Removed score from repairing in Horde.
• Fixed a few bounties not awarding proper XP values
• Fixed an issue where players could push other players out of bounds on Lift.
• PC and Xbox One can now play cross play on LAN.
• Added Iberian Spanish in-game and cinematic voice over

Addressed numerous miscellaneous map and bug fixes. 
 
Future Updates 
 
Gears Pack Feedback 

• We are going to have an update on Gears Packs. One large piece of feedback we are looking at including is the removal of duplicate cards appearing in packs that need it. We do plan on keeping them in some packs where they make sense (ie: Horde Booster Packs).
• Future Community Holiday Event packs (Gearsmas, etc) will always have a credit path to obtaining them.
• We will have more details on this here in the very near future.

Player Penalties 

• We are still looking into the player penalty fixes. This did not make it in this Title Update. We are exploring if we can get this without a Title Update. We will keep you posted on this as it is a big focus for us.

Horde Leaderboards 

• We will be wiping the Horde leaderboards sometime after TU1 to ensure players can compete for. We will have more news on when this occurs.

Footstep audio 

• This is being worked on and should be in the next Title Update.

Competitive/Core Lobbies 

• This is a larger update that will take a bit but we still have this planned for a future Title Update.

PC Crossplay Testing in a Special Event Playlist 

• We are hoping to conduct a test on this in November. This will be a separate event playlist for people on both platforms to join. We will see what backend telemetry after the weekend and consider what we can do in the future.

Ranks/Horde Icons not appearing in scoreboards 

• This is still planned for a future Title Update.

Grenade Spawning Fix 

• Another issue we have a fix for in the next Title Update. It didn’t make this round of testing.

Campaign Achievement Issues 

• We have a fix for this in Title Update 2. It will require users to complete the same campaign item that they did not complete to trigger it but they can continue from the checkpoints that they have obtained prior to do so.

Some additional Windows 10 features coming 

• Vertical Split Screen and Ultra Wide HUD scaling are coming to Windows 10 in the next Title Update.
• Patching on Windows 10 is a better experience now. Cyphos will have a post regarding that later this weekend.