Review: Gears of War 4

After a short, but noticeable 4 year absence from our screens, the Gears of War franchise was born anew last month with the release of Gears of War 4. The beginning of a new trilogy for the franchise, Gears 4 is the first to bring the series to the appropriately named Unreal Engine 4.

Though Epic Games were not at the helm of Gears of War 4, Rod Furgusson, series producer, actually left Epic Games to continue working on the franchise with The Coalition, formerly Black Tusk Studio. With Gears of War: Ultimate Edition already under their belt – likely as a training exercise to grow the team around the new engine technology as they inched away on the sequel, Gears of War 4 was put out to work just a year after the HD remaster project was officially out of the door.

Taking place 25 years after the closing moments of Gears of War 3 – our apparent series finale – the franchise has taken a turn similar to that of other Microsoft-owned franchise ‘Halo’ in spawning another trilogy on the back of its last. But with Furgusson staying on-board to oversee the move to the ‘next generation’, is Gears of War retreading old ground or seeing the exact preservation it deserves after all these years?

There’s something to be said when the controls of a game you started 10 years prior come racing back into your mind the moment you see a chainsaw assault rifle placed into your hand. A familiar gun, view point and UI had me bracing behind cover and nailing one after another perfect active reloads and quickly showering my enemies with the bolstered bullets. Except this time, I wasn’t fighting familiar enemies. Not straight away, at least.

The reptilian locust horde of the past games had gone, instead replaced with some cheery sounding mechanical soldiers just as capable as their predecessors. They’d immediately vault over available terrain if it meant standing on my head, whether it put them harms way or not. Though they wouldn’t last long once I grew re-accustomed to the idea of charging head-long into battle with my Gnasher shotgun, I couldn’t help but feel I’d been down this same path far too much over the years.

For the sake of context, each Gears of War campaign has always followed a few golden rules. You’ll have a group of AI squad mates around, ready to pick you up if you fall. But you’re also constantly encouraged to think strategically with each encounter as available object placement and enemy spawn points gently suggest where you should hold down to stand a better chance of blasting down your foes before they start to advance up into your personal space. While this isn’t so much a problem on the easier difficulties, where enemies fight more akin to a glass cannon, the rapidly scaling damage output of a swarm on Insane will quickly dictate the need to find a hold-out point with an easy escape route.

Playing on the Medium difficulty to enjoy the story on my first trip through the regurgitated planet of Sera, I came out of chapter 1 already bored of the surrounding area and struggled to see how it could get much better.

Under the promise of seeing John DiMaggio resume his stellar performance of Marcus Fenix, I pressed on. That and the fact I wasn’t too keen on calling time on a £50 purchase after a couple rounds of Horde mode on a map I’ve been playing since the 2006. I had to get my money’s worth – especially after waiting for years to be reunited with my Lancer.

But in the end I was left relatively disappointed. It was clear Gear of War 4 wasn’t looking to reinvent itself after all these years. Why would it? The original made a name for itself when even Microsoft wasn’t expecting anyone to buy into it. Though, just like Bill Gates himself encouraged, selling the game on the idea of the chainsaw bayonet payed off, and Gears of War cemented itself as a relatively uncomplicated shooter with enough violence and fresh ideas to get by in a time where the ageing gamer market wanted a little more story in their shooters while still being able to blow holes through their enemies in the most ridiculous ways.

So why wasn’t I happy? I knew Gears 4 wasn’t going to be doing anything drastically new. It didn’t have to. At least, that’s what I thought. But after 8 hours of shooting at the same enemies before walking through a corridor knowing what lies in wait: (hint: it’s more of the same enemies), I’d grown tired of the rinse and repeat formula. There’s only so many times watching a robot or reptilian anthropoid explode on the barrel of my gun can reap the same rewards as it did 10 years ago.

And realizing both the mechaniod and locust (sorry… Swarm) horde made use of the same uninspired idea to throw wave after wave of ankle-biting enemies – whether the shock orbs or naked mole-men – didn’t do much to break up the monotonous task of pushing forward on the sliver of hope the story might not be completely riding on the coat-tails of its predecessors.

It didn’t pay off.

When you’re trying to test out a weapon that’s new for the series, it’s pretty difficult to put your trust in the new gadget when you’re having to roll backward and whip out your sidearm every few seconds because the developers thought it’d be nice to show you the hard work they put into the same floor-crawling enemies yet again – even though they’re carbon-copies of the Tickers and Wretches from past games. Sure, they look and sound different, but they hold the same principle at heart; to piss you off.

Thankfully, Horde mode retains the fun of previous games. Though it takes on a slight tower defense shape this time around with the Fabricator being available to conjure up spike walls, turrets and ammunition at a price, the ability to move to fabricator between rounds means you’re not stuck defending a single location in a map and are completely able, and encouraged, to scout out each area looking for a place that might offer a little more fortitude to the double Swarmak onslaught coming your way in the later waves.

Sadly, there’s no Mortar this time around, but some of the Fabricator’s little tricks try to make up for that – albeit by stealing some of the fun in later stages when your allies to are just about ready to call it a night. The Hammer of Dawn saw a bit of an upgrade in this mode.

I can’t speak for the other multiplayer modes, however. Not yet. Though I demoed a few maps during the game’s open beta on the Xbox One console a few months ago and rather enjoyed my time; it clear not much has changed over the yers. Lancers will still peck at your knees until you’re on the ground, and everyone’s just looking for an opportunity to get up close and personal with a shotgun. It’s the same old Gears experience – just with less people hugging a truck in a vein attempt at spending 2 minutes to fly out of the map and get kicked within another 10 seconds.

So, in closing comments, Gears of War 4 keeps its cards close to its chest and does little to deviate away from the formula put into place over a decade ago. While a few of the enemies within the campaign offered a slight change of pace to the classic locust horde, it wasn’t long before feelings of nostalgia took hold and made me realize I’d seen its cheap tactics all before. There was little emotional ‘oomph’ in a tale that set itself up for a serious Father/Son fued, nor did its once powerful combat system exhibit the same feeling of raw, brute force it used to. Everything just felt much more tame in comparison to the hard-hitting moments of previous  entries

Horde mode is still a blast with friends, but the whole experience just seems to be growing a little stale now. So much so that I’m here purely for the story – and I can’t see that getting much better at this point.

 

Maybe save it for that movie you were betting on, guys? Hollywood seems open to those ideas again.