Gear up and get ready to head back into Sera to fight off the Swarm invasion once again. In this 6th instalment of this third person shooter series, you’ll be playing the side character from the previous game, Kait Diaz, who is now on a journey to protect Sera from the constant invasion of the Swarm.
Right off the bat, Gears 5 leaves a great first impression with its graphics and detailing of the world of Sera. Not only do the character models look great but the world of Sera is also detailed beautifully with the towns, caves and even the snow covered land being wonderfully designed from the terrain to the weather effects. The design of the areas truly immerses the player into the world of Sera making it a truly enjoyable experience to explore.
The gameplay is also a great factor as I personally enjoy shooters and going up against challenging enemy AI. The variety of guns also provide an ever changing experience as you need to adapt to the current scenario and choose your weapons wisely, such as picking up a low ammo sniper for those maps where you could be widely exposed or a shotgun for those close range heads up moments.
Another nice addition is the open world exploration in certain acts of the game, changing up the usual gameplay of following a designated path to progress. The ability to upgrade your robot helper also gives a better reason to hunt for items throughout the game. On top of this co-op returns and playing with a friend or rando online is always a nice touch.
The campaign story itself is a bit of a hit or miss, it is a fun story to go through overall, it has your general twists to keep glued to your screen, and the already mentioned graphics immerse you into the story even more.
However, this game is totally not for a person who’s new to the Gears of War series as you need a lot of context to enjoy the story as whatever happens in this game is a direct follow up to the previous game. I personally would not recommend it to prospective players who are looking to jump into the this series for the story.
Multiplayer also makes a return with the basic Gears of War multiplayer modes like Versus and Horde mode as well as the addition of a new mode called Escape which is similar to Horde mode but more of a run and gun situation with your teammates in a sense of clearing the enemies behind you and trying to make it to the end of the map (Finish Line) before dying. The rest of the multiplayer mode is more or less the same with little tweaks here and there making it all the much the best it can be.
Overall, Gears 5 has proven to be a strong entry in the world of shooters with great gameplay and graphics, although with a slightly lacklustre story for newcomers. Personally, I would recommend this to those who like to play third person shooters like Fortnite and PUBG for a refreshing change of pace, but I wouldn’t recommend it to those who play these games for the story and aren’t veteran players of the series.