
The game’s music and voice acting are also top shelf, showing that the team believed this to be worthy of as much effort as they’d put into a mainline Gears game. While many of the environments follow the bombed-out-city vibe, they keep each arena fresh by shaking up the elements within. Characters are rendered with striking detail and the particle effects are beautiful. It’s a campaign worthy of the name Gears.Īesthetically, Gears Tactics is a wonderful looking game. Along the way, we get to see a couple additional familiar faces. The storytelling is well done with fantastic voice acting and scenario design to match, as well as some great twists in the story.

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Speaking of keeping things feeling like a Gears game, what would it be without the trademark storytelling and characterization the series has grown to display so wonderfully? Gears Tactics has us following Gabe Diaz (father of second-generation protagonist Kait Diaz) as he and his squadmate, Major Redburn, work to stop a notorious Locust, Ukkon, who’s responsible for the creation of some of the Locust’s biggest baddies. Despite the change in genre, the game makes each unit’s unique characteristics fit beautifully.
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You’ll have to figure out how to tactically conquer Tickers, Boomers, and yes, even Brumak as you close emergence holes. This isn’t just human versus humanoid combat. While its undeniably a fun tactical game with plenty of facets to dig into, they’ve successfully managed to make it a distinctly Gears game too. This cadence proceeds until you either complete your objective(s) or your squad is eliminated. After your team has taken its turn, Locust forces will take theirs.

In missions, each character will take turns moving, positioning behind cover, firing, tossing grenades, and more as they fight to complete their objectives. You can even customize their clothing if you really want the team’s look to synergize like they do. Each soldier will be one of five classes with their own skill tree, and gear loadout, and more. You enter missions with a squad of up to four soldiers. If you’re familiar with other games in the genre, Gears Tactics will feel familiar. Taking many of its cues from contemporaries in the same genre, Gears Tactics delivers a fun, patient, thoughtful gameplay experience with plenty of options for customization along the way and, of course, the possibility of emergent narrative with the permanent loss of non-heroic squadmates. Known for their signature hypermasculine men, well executed narrative, and cover-based shooting, it was the perfect candidate for a strategy game. With the downfall of Master Chief since the flat-to-negative response to Halo 5, Microsoft has seemingly pivoted its focus on the Gears franchise. It’s not out of place to hear S***, F***, or any of the other words an R-rated film may bring with it. Language/Crude Humor: There is plenty of strong language to keep in mind. Sexual Content: There is no sexual content to be concerned about.ĭrugs and Alcohol: There is no classic use of narcotics or alcohol to be concerned with. Expect to see characters shot, stabs, sawed in half, and blown to pieces in gruesome detail. The franchise revels in gore and Tactics is no different. Gears Tactics is no different, with powers like healing and immortality being credited to scientific experimentation. They’re often explained away using some sort of pseudo-scientific rationale.

Spiritual Content: The Gears franchise is known for having grubs with some strange, otherworldly powers. Is this a rip-roarin’ good time or should it crawl in an emergence hole and die? Now, two years later, we’ve got our hands on the spin-off of arguably Microsoft’s strongest exclusive franchise. Microsoft announced both Gears Pop! (a Clash of Clans-styled mobile game) and Gears Tactics, a top-down turn-based strategy game, beside Gears 5. Just when we thought the Gears franchise was locked into a single genre and style, it breaks the mold. A brief note from our editor on publishing amid national crisis.
