Of course, power weapons cause plenty of upset to this dynamic, with the Torque Bow and Boomshot making their triumphant return. Hammerburst and Lancer fire still light up the battleground, but the Gnasher is an invaluable weapon when it comes down to those crucial final moments of a round.
Of course, executions are challenging to pull off in the heat of battle, and they rarely present themselves as an option in the shotgunners' paradise that is Gears 4's multiplayer. In this moment, I was given the option to pull out a knife and brutally murder my nemesis by tapping the 'Y' button, causing me to draw my blade and carve up the sad sap like a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. One of these additions comes in the form of a new grabbing mechanic which encouraged me to reach over a piece of cover and pull a foe on the opposite side over to me. To clarify, while this feels like a return to form, The Coalition has been busy implementing several changes within Gears of War 4 to make it feel more like a natural evolution of the series. As it turns out, all that time away from the battlefield left me incredibly rusty, but it all started coming back after a dozen or so rounds – at least enough so that I was able to pull off the new knife execution. Diving into the beta's Team Deathmatch mode felt like a homecoming of sorts, as I rolled, roadie-ran, mounted cover, and got blown to gory chunks over and over again. The tried and true, heart-racing multiplayer gameplay that so many Gears fans have come to know and love has officially made its triumphant return on Xbox One.
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Suffice it to say, there's a lot more familiarity in this fresh take of the series – oh, and it's an absolute blast.
In that sense, it's been almost five years since I've felt a rush similar to the various and recurring circumstances of Gears of War 3, but that all changed once I booted up the beta and dove into my first round of Team Deathmatch. Quite a bit of time has passed since the game was first shown off, but newfound Gears developer The Coalition is finally ready to give fans a taste of what they can expect from Gears of War 4 later this October.Īfter much anticipation, my time finally came to try out Gears 4's beta through an early access code, and it quickly hit me in a way that the series' latest iteration, Judgment, had failed to do. The darkened USC Galen Center exploded with excitement as the demo played through to its cliffhanger climax, leaving many longtime fans eager to get their hands on the title as soon as humanly possible – myself included. I was in attendance during Microsoft's E3 2015 press conference, when Rod Fergusson stepped out on stage and revealed Gears of War 4 to the world. One editor goes hands-on with the beta for Gears of War 4 prior to its release, and comes away impressed and eager to see how the final game will turn out.