From the sound effects, the aforementioned gruesome executions, and the cheeky references to features in the main series like Active Reload. Headshots will literally tear Locust heads off, and blood splatters on the screen just to make sure you’re aware of your horrifying, but incredibly satisfying deeds on the battlefield.Įverything about the game feels authentic and true to the series. You can still execute Locusts in typically gory ways, and yes, you can still chainsaw them in half.
How would it translate, I wondered, after being ripped from the third-person shooter series, and placed into a far less “gore-heavy” genre such as turn-based tactics?Īsk anyone what comes to mind when you say Gears of War, and nine times out of ten they’ll say something about chainsawing people in half with your gun’s bayonet. One of my biggest concerns going into Gears Tactics was just how strongly its Gears of War DNA would come across. Also, a quick shout out to sniper Mikayla, the biggest badass in the civilian ranks and a welcome addition to the roster of characters in Gears of War.
It’s during these later chapters that the Gears Tactics piece begins to perfectly slot into the larger Gears of War story puzzle so to speak, and fans are sure to enjoy these revelatory moments. Even if in the grand scheme of future events in the series, it doesn’t seem all that major, it feels as if your strategic decisions could prevent things from being a lot worse. You could be the one to put the dent in the Locust forces. It’s serviceable in the sense that it gave me a reason to progress through the campaign and look forward to its story missions far more than the side missions (we’ll get to these later), but it wasn’t until the latter half where things really picked up.īecause you know just how much chaos the Locust threat unleashes on human society, there’s an added sense of significance to guiding Gabe and the rest of your Gears to success. Initially, I wasn’t all that sold on Tactics’ story.
In other words, he’s the guy making all the horrifying Locust creatures you’ve filled with shrapnel in previous titles. Taking place not long after Emergence Day (E-Day for you Gears veterans), Gears Tactics follows the story of Gabe Diaz, the father of Gears 5’s protagonist Kait, as he’s tasked with taking down the Locust eugenicist, Ukkon. The end result is Gears Tactics, a surprisingly excellent turn-based tactics game I struggled to put down.Ī collaborative effort between mainstream series developer The Coalition and Splash Damage, Gears Tactics puts the focus on strategy and intelligent play, over muscles and chainsaw bayonets, and obliterating a Locust’s head with a shotgun. Now, in 2020, it’s time for the Gears of War series to get its own makeover. Developer Ensemble Studios captured everything fans knew and loved about the Halo universe and packed it into a fast-paced, compelling real-time strategy title that was worthy of being associated with Master Chief’s epic series. Despite being such a major divergence from the series’ roots, Halo Wars just felt right.
It took the Xbox’s most prized exclusive IP and turned the sci-fi first-person shooter into a real-time strategy game. Back in September 2006, during Microsoft’s XO6 media briefing, Halo Wars was officially announced.