This week Gears of War 4 Multiplayer Beta has opened up to all Xbox Live Gold members. If you haven’t played it already, then the it’s available to download through the Xbox One Store and has 2 5×5 deathmatch versus modes. There’s also a co-op mode for two players with a fixed Hardcore difficulty against AI as opposed to PVP
The Beta is open until the end of the week and if you reach level 20 then there’s a reward pack you can access when the game is released worldwide on 11th October.
The latest Multiplayer Gameplay trailer gives a great overview of the new weapons and abilities in the game and is worth checking out if you haven’t had a chance to play the Beta yet.
Of course I’ve had a go, and my first impression of the Beta was that it seemed exactly like all the other Gears games with a couple of new tricks and slightly faster gameplay. Some tweaks but no real innovation of note, unless that’s something we’ll see in other modes or the single player campaign.
I’m really not a fan of Deathmatch on Gears so didn’t hang around too long, but the biggest surprise for me was that the Lancer was pretty ineffectual whilst the Gnasher shotgun in particular seemed seriously overpowered.
My first few games were pretty horrific until I got a handle on things, but I definitely had to change the way I had played compared with previous series installments – which in itself, is probably a really good thing. I also think it’s noticeable too that the game is trying to encourage constant movement through the map with your team as opposed to staying in cover as a loner. I’m seriously interested to see how this style of gameplay will translate to other modes, particularly Hoard mode where you usually need to bed in to survive.
Have you been playing the open Beta and if so what did you think? Is it just for die hard Gears fans or has The Coalition managed to improve upon the Gears multiplayer formula?