The coming few weeks are going to be busy in the world of Gears of War.
On November 10th, Gears 5 is getting a major campaign update and, for those that picked up a Xbox Series X | S, Gears 5 will receive a big technical update; and if that isn’t enough, Gears Tactics is also coming out. We’re following that up with Operation 5 releasing November 17. Finally, the Gears 5 Hivebusters DLC is releasing this December.
What a great time to be a Gears of War fan!
Gears 5 Campaign Update
Let’s breakdown what you will see in our massive Gears 5 campaign update.
Dave Batista in Gears 5
The living legend Dave Batista is coming to Gears 5!
Dave Batista is a huge Gears of War and Marcus Fenix fan, so we jumped at the chance to get him in the game. We worked with him re-recorded all of Marcus’ lines while the art team meticulously recreated his likeness. The end result is Dave Batista is present throughout the campaign in both gameplay and cinematic moments.
For those who want to keep the classic Gears feel – the original Marcus is still there too.
The Look of Multiplayer in Campaign
Since Gears 5 has launched, we’ve added tons of new character and weapon skins. Until now, these skins were only available in Multiplayer but not any longer. Starting November 10, you play as your favorite character and weapon skins in campaign. Note: This only applies to characters playable in each chapter and the skins will be visible in the cut scenes.
Gears 5 gets more Challenging
For those that think they’ve got what it takes, we’ve added two new modes for you to show us what you’ve got.
We’ve brought back the popular yet diabolical Inconceivable Mode. The hardest version of Gears 5 is here to push you to your limits.
If that’s not enough, Ironman Mode is for you. It’s simple, just complete the campaign without dying in any difficulty. No problem, right?
We can’t wait to see the people that complete the dual Ironman/ Inconceivable mode.
And for the achievement hunters out there, we’ve added 5 new achievements (95 Gamerscore)
| Achievement | Description | Points |
| Ironed Out | Complete all chapters in Ironman Mode on Experienced difficulty or above | 50 |
| That’s Inconceivable! | Complete all chapters on Inconceivable difficulty | 30 |
| Showin’ a little skin | Complete a chapter of Campaign while using a Custom Skin | 5 |
| Just showing it off | Kill 10 enemies using a weapon with a Custom Skin | 5 |
| Batista Bomb | Complete all chapters in one Act while Batista as Marcus is enabled | 5 |
Gears 5 Mutators
One of the biggest updates we’re making is the addition of 16 mutators that will change the look, difficulty, and experience of Gears 5’s campaign.
We’ve even giving you the option to even select multiple mutators at the same time (as long as they don’t cancel each other out). For example, if you want Big Heads, Friendly Fire on and Gears 1 visuals – we’ve got you covered.
We know the Gears Fam is very creative so make sure to send us your favorite mutator combinations!
| OFF | Standard Gears 5 visuals | |
| Big head mode | Bounce Head | All enemies and allies have large bouncing heads |
| Big Head | All enemies and allies have their heads enlarged | |
| Active Reload | Normal | Standard Gears 5 active reload mechanic |
| Refills clip | Get free ammo on a successful active reload | |
| Reload only when successful | Reload only happens on a successful active reload | |
| Execution Rules | ON / OFF | Toggle option so downed swarm enemies can only be killed through executions |
| Play as a drone | ON / OFF | Toggle option to have your heroes replaced with a Swarm Drone. This will override your skin selection. |
| Headshot explosion | Normal | Standard Gears 5 headshot visuals |
| Confetti | Heads explode into confetti | |
| Grenade | Heads explode damaging nearby enemies | |
| Health Regeneration | Normal | Standard Gears 5 health regeneration |
| Cover | Regenerate health only while in cover | |
| Damage | Regenerate health only when dealing damage | |
| Cover or Damage | Regenerate health only while in cover or when dealing damage | |
| Out of combat | Regenerate health only after a combat encounter is done | |
| Melee Resistant Juvies | ON / OFF | Toggle this option to make Juvies harder to kill with melee attacks |
| Enemy Modifiers | Normal | Standard Gears 5 enemy damage or health |
| Shock | Enemies deal area shock damage | |
| Vampiric | Enemies heal when dealing damage | |
| Freezing | Enemies deal freezing damage | |
| Poison | Enemies leave a poison pool behind when killed | |
| Passive Regen | Enemies regenerate health after not taking damage | |
| Low Gravity Death | ON / OFF | Toggle this option to have enemies float in the air when killed |
| Total Ammo | Normal | Standard Gears 5 amount of ammo you can carry |
| Half | Reduce total ammo available per weapon | |
| Double | Increase total ammo available per weapon | |
| Aggressive Enemies | ON / OFF | Toggle option to make all enemies behave more aggressively |
| Friendly Fire | ON / OFF | Toggle option to allow damage between allies |
| Shielded enemies | ON / OFF | Toggle option to have Grenadiers, Hunters and Scions have an invulnerable front shield |
| Voiced gun sounds | ON / OFF | Toggle Option to replace the gun sounds with voiced effects |
| Jack Cooldowns | Normal | Standard Gears 5 cooldown for Jack’s abilities |
| Halved | Jack’s ability cooldowns are halved | |
| Fast | Jack’s ability cooldowns are minimized | |
| Screen Effects | OFF | Standard Gears 5 visual effects |
| Golden Hour | Enable the Golden Hour look | |
| Film Green | Enable the Film Green look | |
| Film Blue | Enable the Film Blue look | |
| Gears 1 | Enable the Gears 1 look | |
| Gears 2 | Enable the Gears 2 look | |
| Gears 3 | Enable the Gears 3 look | |
| Grayscale | Enable the Grayscale look | |
| Pink Unicorn | Enable the Pink Unicorn look | |
| Movie Poster | Enable the Movie Poster look | |
| Kait’s Nightmare | Enable Kait’s Nightmare look | |
| Retro Pixel | Enable the Retro Pixel look | |
| Glow Outline | Enable the Glow Outline look | |
| Cartoon Outline | Enable the Cartoon outline look | |
| Tripping | Enable the Tripping look | |
| Scanlines | Enable the Scanlines look | |
| Heat Vision | Enable the Heat Vision look | |
| Distortion | Enable the Distortion look | |
| Vintage Film | Enable the Vintage Film look | |
| Sketch | Enable the Sketch look |
Gears 5 Xbox Series X | S technical Updates
The power of the new Xbox Series X | S means Gears 5 will feel more responsive and look better than it ever! Here is a breakdown of the technical upgrades you should expect the first time you fire up Gears 5 on your new Xbox.
- PC Ultra visual feature set (this is more true on Series X)
- PC Ultra-HD texture pack (Series X only)
- 60 FPS (Series X only) cinematics allowing more seamless blending between gameplay and cinematics
- 120 FPS in Versus
- Screen Space Global Illumination which gives your scene dynamic bounce lighting
- Contact Shadows allowing per-pixel accurate shadowing
- 4x improvement in load times
- 50% more particles than PC Ultra
- Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) for more responsive gaming
These updates will be available on November 10!
We’ve got lots more news coming about Gears of War over the coming weeks so make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date on the latest details and announcements.