
A list of each unit’s traits can be called up, but attempting to squeeze the most out of every turn is a serious mental workout that can tax newcomers. Unless you’re a master tactician, memorizing each unit’s dozen or so passive and active skills isn’t easy. Gears Tactics gets the franchise’s grand ambitions of worldwide conflict across effectively. By the time you reach some of the later acts, the wonky customization menu starts to complicate things. You can’t retrieve a unit’s equipment if they’re used even once in a multi-mission chapter, making loot management another thing to keep tabs on. Story progression and mandatory side-missions facilitate the need for reserve troops. Tactics on the battlefield, strategy in the menus Popping a Boomer’s head and using its grenade launcher to burst Wretches is just icing on the cake, and tossing a pineapple into an emergence hole still feels worthy of a high-five from whoever’s around. Once you start to recruit more allies, you’ll spend a good five to 10 minutes between each mission, ensuring their equipment and abilities align. Loot caches scattered across each battlefield award random weapon attachments and equipment at the end of the mission, padding out the time spent between tasks by offering plenty of character customization. Units slide into cover and fire (and miss) from behind, and the cinematic kill-cam occasionally goes over a unit’s shoulder to get you closer to the action. The idea to take an existing Gears game and simply move the camera up begins to make sense here.Įach turn looks, feels, and sounds like a Gears of War skirmish playing out from a different angle. The way Gear’s iconic action sequences seamlessly translate to this turn-based formula creates a combat dynamic that feels shockingly accurate to the source material while providing a welcome new perspective.

It really wouldn’t feel like a Gears game without them. There’s a decent amount of variety when it comes to mission objectives, but they all boil down to the same thing: Kill some freaky lizards.Įach turn looks, feels, and sounds like a Gears of War skirmish.Įach unit expends a limited amount of AP per turn between offensive and defensive actions, and you can cycle through your team to optimize your budget.Ĭinematic executions return and are encouraged to get the most out of your team’s strict action limit. No matter which of the four mission types you find yourself in, your squad of four or fewer units land in the same position with the fog of war obscuring nearly everything until you push forward through the mud. Once you’re out in the open, it’s all hands on deck. There’s very little menu fluff to get stuck into, which is good given the menus wouldn’t look out of place on a mobile phone. With only the occasional cutscene moving the narrative along, you’re almost always facing off against the enemy. Still, the tight design helps to keep the core elements of combat simple, with more sophisticated strategies being born through the direction you decide to take their unique talent trees as they level up through combat. It may not sound like much to mess around with. To put Ukkon down, you recruit and replenish heroes and foot soldiers, with their roles decided by which one of five iconic weapons they prefer. His team is tasked with murdering Ukkon, the enigmatic engineer behind the iconic Brumak and Corpser monstrosities, and he isn’t afraid to use his grotesque creations to stop you. Gears Tactics is a prequel set 12 years before the first game, as Gabe Diaz takes the reins.

It’s a testament to a franchise that perfected gory combat from its inception, and this tactical approach to its format should have been done years ago.

Gears Tactics doesn’t hold your hand, but it will inspire you to execute the grub-slaying strategies your online buddies would usually botch. Gears of War 4’s new multiplayer trailer is a throwback in the best and worst way possible ‘Gears of War 4’ sees return of two classic maps and hundreds of new cards
