First Impressions: Gears Of War 4 Beta

The multiplayer version of the original Gears of War ushered in innovative gameplay mechanics, like the modern cover system, that are still commonplace in most 3rd person shooters and action games today. There are few moments in gaming that come close to matching the satisfaction of getting a chainsaw kill in the multiplayer mode of 2006’s Gears of War on Xbox 360. However, after spending close to a week playing the recent Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta on the Xbox One it’s difficult for me to come up with anything that would qualify as groundbreaking in the latest iteration of the 10-year-old franchise. The recent beta didn’t include any gameplay from the new campaign that’ll be available when Gears 4 is released in October of this year. This is fitting considering that while Gears has always shipped with an impressively robust campaign, most casual and hardcore fans of the series are more anxious to find out about how multiplayer in the new Gears compares to previous iterations. In terms of speed, Gears 4 is in tune with Gears 3, with the pace slowed down just a notch, which allows for more of the tactical chess matches that were common in the original Gears, but were lost in the shuffle of the frenzied, multiplayer, shotgun rolling wars of the matches of Gears 2. The Gears 4 beta included fan-favorite game modes Team Deathmatch and Co-Op Team Deathmatch, but the clear standout of the beta was the new game mode — Dodgeball. While weapon balance received only modest adjust…