Stevivor sat down with The Coalition’s Chuck Osieja to go hands-off and discuss Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.
Much like Halo: Anniversary and Halo 2: Anniversary before it, this remastered version of the first Gears of War title will use same code base as Epic’s classic third-person, cover-based shooter, but will feature most everything else built from the ground up. That includes character models, environments, lighting and even motion capture. The game’s score has also been remastered in 7.1 surround sound.
As revered as Gears of War is, Osieja stressed that Ultimate Edition is a “modernisation of gameplay” found in the original title. The framework of Gears of War 3’s innovation has really made its mark in this original title; chainsaw attacks will no longer make you suddenly invincible. Teammates can be revived from cover. Weapons can be toggled whilst in the middle of the famed roadie run.
Moreover, sensitivity customisation has been built into the game’s controls, and alternate and new tournament control schemes have also been made available. Gears of War 3’s enemy spotting and tac-com functionality can also be used by Marcus, Dom and their fellow COGs.
For the first time on console, five chapters of new content only available on the original PC version of Gears of War will be made available. To aid with new players, a new difficulty level has also been inserted into Ultimate Edition. Essentially, the original game’s Casual mode has now been classed as Normal, and a new, easier Casual mode has been created. Don’t let that give you a false sense of security, however; Osieja confirmed that the game’s widely regarded difficulty spike of a final boss has been left unchanged.
Keeping with its split-screen roots, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will run two players in a new letterboxed presentation to get each on-screen player closer to a single-player aspect ratio. Even better, the game allows for different difficulty levels for each of the two split-screen players who want to tackle the game’s campaign together. A total of 1,250 gamerscore will be offered in the title, with Achievements a mixture of new and old offerings.
The Gears of War community itself has largely influenced Ultimate Edition’s multiplayer. The game will its full complement of 19 original and DLC maps, with Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and the community-created Gnashers 2v2 mode being added as well. To aid in Esports endeavours, the game will use dedicated servers, offer LAN support and has two spots in each match exclusively reserved for a spectator to stream action live. Ultimate Edition will also use Xbox Live matchmaking, and said functionality was tested in the beta that took place over E3.
Visually, you can see the graphical bump from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, akin to Halo 2: Anniversary between console iterations. Those of you on PC get an extra treat; that version isn’t merely a port of the console offering. It will come with DirectX 12 support, 4K resolution support, unlimited refresh rates and, of course, keyboard and mouse support.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will be available from 24 August on Xbox One and Windows PC. From 18 August, you’ll be able to pick up the title alongside an Xbox One console and have the digital offering pre-loaded for launch. The game also offers access to the Gears of War 4 beta.
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