Gears of War: Reloaded (2025, Windows) Review

AIN'T GOT TIME TO BLEED

Gears of War: Reloaded is the latest re-rerelease of the influential, cover-based third-person shooter from The Coalition. It contains the original campaign plus some neatly embedded DLC, which I didn't learn until I'd completed the game. When the DLC kicked in I just thought it was an ill-conceived detour within the main story. I figured it was inserted to ramp up the enemy body count to world record numbers.

This remaster also updates the visuals - it supports 4K resolution and 60 FPS - to make it line up with the modern gaming landscape. That's cool. It's also unstable. At one point early in the game, the graphics stopped working. I could hear the sound of gameplay, but the screen was all black. I had to revert to an earlier save in order to fix it. That's not cool. Luckily, it never happened again.

When I first started it, I also thought they made an error when expanding from 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9. The characters looked comically wide, with inbred biker faces plastered onto an inflatable head. But that's the way they're designed. They're tough soldiers; muscle, sweat and armor through and through. They talk strong, act tough and move like bulls. This is no less true for Marcus Fenix, the player character who looks like the missing link.

Against an enemy force of invading alien insects, called Locust, he's just what humanity needs. The comically brief opening explains that: "For a time the humans of Sera knew the illusion of peace, until..." ...the Locust invasion began, seemingly from the underground. Humanity responded with a scorched earth tactic, nuking their own civilization to rubble. This prevented the enemy from populating the surface.

But they burrowed underground instead. And now they come crashing through the ground to ambush human forces everywhere. Armed with surpringsly advanced intellect and weaponry, the Locust have the upper hand in this war. Your task is to activate a device, the "Resonator", that can chart their underground tunnels. This'll allow you to nuke them from the surface. The problem is that you need to find a way deep into their underground network to do so.

That search is a long, linear trek through an urban wasteland. Since the planent's surface got blown up, the world has become a post-apocalyptic heap of rubble. Fallen debris provide cover opportunities. This becomes a central gameplay mechanic, because you cannot withstand many hits.

Back when the original was released (2006), this became a gamechanger. For awhile, any contender for the action game throne had to have a good cover mechanic. Also, it removed the traditional health bar. Instead, you have less maximum health, but an auto-heal kicks in after a few seconds of not getting hit. This became the new standard for the generation.

The experience is loud and intense. Gunfire, voice commands and the orchestral soundtrack compete for audio domination. In between action set pieces a bare-bones story plays out, with some character development and drama. Marcus hates his commander. He mourns his late father. Your squad members get killed and replaced. An early romance is hinted at and never seen again. I've seen players share how moved they were by the storyline. I can't say I shared that sentiment, but neither do I mind the plot. It gives you a breather from time to time.

Enemies swarm from all over, guns blazing, screaming guttural threats that you can't comprehend. They're a tough bunch. Even their grunts can soak up a lot of hits. The closer you get to the end, the bigger and stronger they get. You need to adjust your weapon accordingly; maybe drop your pistol and get a shotgun or a sniper rifle.

I got a chuckle out of the boomers; giants who have the courtesy of screaming "BOOM!" just ahead of an insta-killing rocket salvo. It gave me time to find cover or to prepare for a dodgeroll.

While you wait out the attack, you might grab the opportunity to reload, which is a cool minigame in itself. With a well-timed button press you can speed up the reload. Depending on execution, you might even increase damage output for a few shots. This is the sort of ingenious mechanic Nintendo would try to patent, if they were into violent games.

The damage boost can help bring down bosses. They are usually huge and scary insectoids, giving me flashbacks to Starship Troopers. They usually require some extraordinary multi-layered approach. For instace, you might need to target specific body parts, or find a specific gun that calls on a nuke from a satellite. These fights are pretty great, except when the enemy unleashes insta-killing attacks. Have these ever not felt unfair?

In short; it's a very busy, straight-to-the-point approach to game design. I appreciate that it respects my time. The only part that infuriated me was the final bossfight, which takes place on a moving train. A swarm of locust kept insta-killing me. At first I couldn't see a way to avoid it, and when I finally did, it still kept happening. It felt unfair. I felt incompetent. And I never got over that feeling, because the boss glitched out and froze in place. This allowed me to safely kill him from behind cover.

So, I beat the game without ever mastering the final boss. It left me with a sour aftertaste. But it's nowhere near enough to dissuade me from recommending the game. As someone who's been a Playstation-owner since the PS2, it's great to finally get to play some of these Xbox-exclusives. Gears of War represents the culmination of the traditional, single-player AAA campaign. The Coalition took great care in reading the gamer landscape and provided us with the stuff we craved.

It's a macho fantasy; a challenging and intense fever dream of mayhem, with a story sprinkled on top.  All colors are desaturated, except blood red and dirt brown. Everything else is made of metal or concrete, and part of the greyscale. Even the fabric of the bandanas and caps looks metallic.

The pacing is stellar, offering some 7-9 hours of varied slaughter. You get to practice your squad-leading skills through the open city. It occasionally transitions into tunnel claustrophia. Then it goes back up again, and so on. A lot of the game has horror undertones. It's just the cockiness of Marcus and his squad that keeps the fears at bay.

As someone late to the party, I've already played some of the games that were inspired by Gears of War. That's unfortunate. To me, it doesn't feel that special or original. I've seen the exact same mechanics done equally well, or better, in more recent copycats. I've seen better stories in action games. That's why I have a hard time loving Gears of War to death. What I can say, however, is that I respect it to death.