Gears of War 5
The Coalition
I was gone all this past weekend, so I was unable to take advantage of my three days of early access with Ultimate Xbox Game Pass, but I’ve finally gotten into the Gears of War 5 campaign for a bit.
Something feels different with this Gears release than with Gears 4 back in 2016. That felt like a game that was…fine, but mostly flew under the radar and was all but absent from most year-end top ten lists. Gears 5? It feels like it might make the 2019 cut, even if it’s just a tick higher on Metacritic. It may not be a God of War-level reimagining of the series or anything, but it’s making more of an impact for many, myself included.
As time goes on, I find myself being less and less impressed with the visuals of video games. It’s not that they’re bad. To the contrary, they’re all just so good at this point that they all kind of blur together. It’s expected that all games look great now, so when something arrives and looks noticeably dated (cough, cough Fallout), it’s a little jarring.
I can only think of a handful of truly “wow” moments relating to visuals in video games the past console generation. God of War and Uncharted 4 both had that effect on me on PS4 Pro, particularly UC4’s lost pirate city which is one of the most beautiful video game environments possibly ever created. But for Xbox One? It’s only happened once, and that would be with what I’m seeing now in Gears of War 5.
The game is stunning. I don’t have the full Digital Foundry-level breakdown on why it’s so stunning, other than the obvious big numbers like running in 60 FPS at 4K, which is a pretty monumental achievement itself in this day and age on console, even on the powerful Xbox One X.
It manages to make Gears of War 5 feel like a next generation title before the next generation even gets here. This is kind of how things work now with “intermediate” consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, as these half-generations have opened the door to a whole host of visual and gameplay improvements. But not every game takes advantage of those. In this case, however, it feels like Gears 5 is wringing every last drop out of the full power of the Xbox One X, which is, notably, a good amount more powerful than the PS4 Pro, and you can see it in every scene of the game, even from the opening moments where you descend into a waterfall chasm seemingly designed to show off the game’s beauty immediately.
Gears of War 5
The Coalition
I am getting flashbacks all the way to Gears of War 1 on the Xbox 360, another game that was pushing the boundaries of visuals on consoles and that made my jaw drop when I first played it. All subsequent Gears games looked good, including Gears 4, I suppose, but none of them have felt like this. And I’ve really only seen three major locations so far, nearing the end of the second Act.
As for the rest of it? We’ll see. I like the story so far, and the focus on exploration and side-missions, which is unusual for this series. I still am just not a fan of Gears-style cover-combat as it has never stopped feeling overly clunky to me, but that ship has sailed and enough people do like it where it’s clearly never going to change. So that’s just me.
But yeah, this game is just a treat to experience no matter how it plays because of how it looks and runs, and that’s praise I will almost never put on a game more than a few times in a generation, given how much it takes to stand out. Gears 5 has earned it.
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