The year was 2006, the shooter genre was bigger than ever, and while heavy-hitters like Halo and Call of Duty had more or less dominated the limelight, nothing quite changed the game like The Coalition and Xbox Game Studios’ Gears of War.

Just short of 20 years later, the Gears of War series is still going strong, with an entirely new entry on the way. In the meantime, Gears of War: Reloaded revisits where the series began but promises beefed-up performance and buffed-out graphics. I headed back onto the field on PC and mostly enjoyed being back in the fight.

Gears of War led the charge on the cover-based shooter mechanic with third-person gameplay that holds up to this day. Gears of War: Reloaded adds a whole new clip of improvements, being the next upgrade from the first remaster, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, in 2015. The post-Emergence Day planet of Sera comes decked out with all the iconic COG soldiers, glorious weapons, the Locust threat, and the original story.

While it’s great to see how far we’ve come, going back to somewhat dated animations and less-refined gameplay compared to the incredibly polished gameplay, visuals, and performance of later titles, especially Gears 5, the latest instalment feels like a bit too much of a look into the past rather than toward the future of the series.

That isn’t to say Marcus Fenix and the boys haven’t received a significant glow-up. Gone are the gritty, washed-out visuals that were prevalent in the early 2000s; shooters replaced with incredible lighting, shadow and reflection upgrades, upgraded textures and gorgeous cutscene improvements where you can see down to every last pore, defined muscle and sheen of sweat, really “hammer-of-dawning” home how arduous the journey is for our butch band of bros.

Speaking of bros, they all return in all their glory, with the original voice acting, and a badass soundtrack perfect for ruthlessly killing the Locust Horde. Where the sound doesn’t quite hit the mark is the gun sounds. While the iconic Lancer revving remains, the gunshot sounds don’t feel as impactful, sounding much more subdued than expected from a high-velocity killing contraption.

While the Gears of War campaign is a nostalgic one, it doesn’t necessarily hold up to modern shooters, especially not the later Gears entries. Throughout the five acts, there’s a reasonable variety of shake-ups to the gameplay, but often the linear progression feels too drawn out.

Some of my least favourite elements include excessive animations to operate mechanisms and forced walking when speaking to Control over an earpiece. Despite these stalls in the full-blown action, Gears of War: Reloaded still keeps a reasonable amount of variety, not to overstay its welcome, offering a campaign that mostly keeps up a steady pace, with the inclusion of the additional chapters from the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

I definitely felt like a lone soldier during my missions. While bot versions of Dom, Cole, and Baird almost always accompanied me, they tended to hinder rather than help. In a few instances, they could be the deciding factor between life and death, standing in the way in narrow corridors, shooting like Stormtroopers, and in one example, standing in the warpath of a particularly angry Berserker, getting bulldozed in the process, or hilariously falling off a moving train.

Later Gears of War games featured much more intelligent bots who almost always drop everything to help up a fellow bro. Here, though, solo players have very little support from the boys.

Gears of War: Reloaded proves further that co-op shooters are better with buddies and with split-screen or online co-op and cross-platform cross-play function across Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC Gears of War: Reloaded allows players to have the chance to deploy their full squad regardless of platform for more effective combat and support in a pinch.

All 19 multiplayer maps have been lovingly renewed with upgraded visuals. All PVP multiplayer modes return, such as Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, and the always chaotic Assassination. While Horde mode was introduced later in the series, it would’ve been a nice little bonus to bolster the already stacked multiplayer content. All original characters and cosmetics can be earned through progression with no paid DLC except the pre-order bonus.

Xbox, PlayStation, and PC gamers can enjoy the game on their respective controllers or mouse and keyboard. I tend to prefer a keyboard and mouse when given the option. Still, with more feedback when shooting from the Xbox controller’s vibration and the PlayStation 5 DualSense’s haptic feedback, I found it much more satisfying to opt for controllers.

Gears of War: Reloaded is a generous offering with plenty of additions from the previous remaster, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, including stepping up from 1080p to a whopping 4K for those lucky enough with a 4K monitor and the inclusion of Ultrawide support and super resolution.

The campaign is set to run at 60fps and multiplayer at 120fps on consoles and an uncapped framerate on PC.

I have a pretty tanky PC, but I had occasional framerate drops between cutscenes and in some combat encounters, which I certainly did not want during intense moments. Some menus and textures were slow to load, but hopefully, all these issues will be patched out on release.

Upon starting up the game on PC, it’s best to visit the graphics settings to ensure the best experience possible for your system. Once I found the sweet spot, it was relatively smooth sailing moving forward.

Gears of War: Reloaded is a nostalgic, yet dated, trek through the iconic origins of the beloved Gears series. While the game is essentially a remaster of a remaster from 2015’s Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, it’s a worthwhile introduction for more gamers looking to play on this generation of consoles, to meet the ever-growing power of PCs, and to experience an amped-up version of the classic title.

While a complete remake in Unreal Engine would have been better served, it would be a massive undertaking. Thankfully, it isn’t long to wait until Gears of War hits its 20th anniversary and with it, the release of Gears of War: E-Day in 2026, where we will finally first-hand experience Emergence Day, where the war began. 

Written by: Yasmin Noble