What you need to know
- Gears 5 is an intense third-person tactical shooter that received rave reviews at launch for its visuals and gameplay.
- With next-gen consoles coming soon, Gears 5 is coming in guns blazing with a massive update day one.
- Alongside huge visual and performance upgrades for next-gen hardware, Gears 5 will add new campaign content and a New Game+ mode.
- New Game+ will have harder difficulties, including permadeath, more character and weapon skins, and more.
In some ways, launch line-ups for next-gen consoles like the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Playstation 5 are a little lacklustre, with a shortage of true next-gen titles showcasing the power of the new hardware. One game that refuses to be lumped in with the rest is Gears 5, which is marching onto the Xbox Series X and S with fervor and a humungous next-gen update. Thanks to a report from IGN, we now have a lot more details on what to expect with Gears 5's big update, notably regarding the New Game+ mode.
Gears 5 will implement a New Game+ mode accessible to all players on all platforms that will enable:
- Two new difficulties: "Inconceivable" is one difficulty level higher than Gears 5's current max, while "Ironman" increases the challenge even further by giving you only one life to complete the game.
- Jack upgrades don't reset. In order to make playing at the highest difficulties easier, any upgrades to your handy Jack will carry over in New Game+.
- New skins. Character skins will be added for Kait, Del, and JD, while weapons will also have new skins.
- New achievements. If you want more reason to replay Gears 5, additional Achievements will be added in New Game+ mode.
- Mutators. Shake up your Gears 5 gameplay with some fun mutators, like "Big Head Mode."
- Dave Bautista as Marcus Fenix. And optional skin will turn Dave Bautista, a WWE wrestler, into Marcus Fenix, complete with his own voice over.
Other details we already knew, one way or the other, like Gears 5's next-gen visual and performance enhancements, which include 4K at up to 120fps in campaign and multiplayer, massively improved lighting, shadows, textures, increased loading speeds, 60fps cinematics, reduced latency, and a whole lot more. It's a seriously impressive list of upgrades, and showcases the skill the Coalition has at drawing the max out of Xbox.
In case you missed it, Gears 5 is also getting new story DLC later this year in December, so even more great content is planned to come to the game. Gears Tactics, the turn-based strategy spin-off of Gears, is also an Xbox Series X and S launch title, complete with its own next-gen update and new content. The Coalition is really bringing their A-game to next-gen.
Xbox Series X/S
Main
- Xbox Series X: Everything we know
- Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
- List of Xbox Series X specs
- What is the Xbox Series X release date?
- How much does Xbox Series X cost?
- Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
- Best Xbox Series X Headsets
