[XOne & W10] Gears of War 4

Since the series' debut, Gears of War players have logged an impressive 2.3 billion hours playing Gears of War's multiplayer. The Coalition is acutely aware that it has a passionate fan base looking forward to digging into the next online Gears experience. Our recent trip to visit the studio for our April cover story focused largely on the game's story-focused campaign, but we were still able to eke out a few juicy details about multiplayer.

1) Multiplayer is getting a bigger focus this time:
"Historically, the campaign is the hardest thing to make out of any of these games," says studio head Rod Fergusson. "So if you look at the development of Gears one, it was probably 90 percent single player, 10 percent multiplayer. Over the course of the franchise, that percentage shifted, but I don't think it ever got above 70/30. Coming here, multiplayer has a much greater position at the table. On day one, as we were prototyping our first campaign experience, we were also building multiplayer maps. We really want to meet the needs of not just recreational players but eSports players, and it's something we've been thinking about for the entire development cycle."

2) Ryan Cleven is the Lead MP Designer:
Cleven's resume includes series like Need for Speed and SSX.

We'd be shocked if Horde mode didn’t return:
The Coalition wouldn’t confirm the addition of any particular multiplayer mode, but the team is keenly aware of the mode's popularity and seem focused on making the Gears community happy moving into the future.

4) The multiplayer beta will start this spring:
During the beta, players will be able to play as five of the campaign's protagonists. The first three are the three main playable heroes, JD, Kait, Del. The fourth is Kait's mom and leader of the Outsiders, a woman named Reyna. The fifth is Kait's uncle, Oscar, who is an ex-Gear soldier and expert survivalist.

5) Multiplayer is still humans vs monsters:
To fit into the lore of the world, there will be at least three factions in multiplayer, but these will still be separated into humans vs. monsters, meaning one side will play as the new Swarm enemies, while the other side with play as either COG soldiers or human Outsiders. We're not entirely sure if multiplayer is only limited to these three factions, however, so it's possible that there is a second, unknown monster faction.

6) Each faction has their own knife and will likely have other unique attributes:



7) The team is making a big push for the eSports market this time around:
The Coalition even has one staffer dedicated to work full time on the eSports initative.

"Gears of War was one of the first games to be part of the eSports growth, and it came around during a time when things like Twitch were just starting to explode," says director of community Adam Fletcher. "What were trying to do now is treat eSports as a brand. We started that with the Ultimate Edition where we partnered with the ESL, and worked to created different seasons in of a pro league as well as an open series that spans North America, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. During our championships, we had over 130,000 unique viewers on Twitch, and we sold out of tickets for a live event down in Burbank."

But casual fans are still welcome:
"When I was at Epic, we didn't really value pro players," says studio head Rod Fergusson. "We were always focused on accessibility and how to get more recreational players. We let pro players do whatever they wanted and tried not to overdevelop for them. Now we're trying to find that balance. We recognize that there's this professional player, and have you sort of build a funnel toward them but also make sure your game is highly accessible."

9) Don't expect a lot of wind:
Wind is a big part of the story campaign, but at this time, the team isn't planning on incorporating wind flares into the game's multipayer maps.

10) The Coalition is getting some help:
The multiplayer team also includes London-based developer, Splash Damage, which has previously worked on games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Brink, Batman: Arkham Origins, and even Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. “They’re helping with a lot of the level design stuff," says Fergusson. "Especially with meshing of multiplayer maps, we’re tapping into the expertise they got from Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. They also have a lot of expertise with online systems, in terms of matchmaking from Ultimate Edition. They basically had to rewrite for Xbox One, between us and them, the whole matchmaking sub-system…when you get a strategic partner like Splash Damage, we talk about training up our own team on Gears, but when you have another team that’s trained up on Gears, we definitely want to work with them as much as possible.”

11) Multiplayer will run at 60 fps and will have its own dedicated servers:What else do you want?


12) Balance is important to The Coalition:
The Studio has introduced a new takedown system that allows players to initiate a series of close-combat melee takedowns. In single player these might become fairly easy to pull off, but The Coalition has worked hard to ensure that, in multiplayer, players on the receiving end of these have several ways to counter the attacks and escape before a knife ends up in their brainpan.

 

Klinkt allemaal goed, alleen die messen... tja, daar ben ik dan wel weer benieuwd naar.

 

Ook een open beta. Nice.



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Gears fans, the wait is almost over. We know you’ve been eager to see what’s in store for the future of Gears multiplayer, and next month, we’re excited to give you the first taste and an opportunity to help shape the multiplayer experience in Gears of War 4 with the launch of our global Versus multiplayer beta, exclusively on Xbox One.

Beginning on April 18, fans who’ve played Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Xbox One or Windows 10 will begin to receive tokens in waves for early access to the beta. Following the conclusion of early access on April 24, all qualifying Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox One will be invited to join the beta until it ends on May 1.

In addition, we’re extending the timeframe for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition players to qualify for early access to the Gears of War 4 beta from March 1 to April 11. To qualify, just log on to Xbox Live and play Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Xbox One or Windows 10 by 11 p.m. PDT, April 11.*

 

Goed dat ze de Esport-scene serieus nemen, iets wat ze bij Gears 2 en 3 totaal niet gedaan hebben met een slechte multiplayer als gevolg. Al was die van Gears 3 in ieder geval nog wel vermakelijk. Maar ik hoop dat ze onzin als die Sawed-off, Mulcher, Mortar en one-shot achterwege laten.

 

3 wordt toch nog steeds beschouwd als de beste?
Wel goed dat ze een echte beta doen net zoals bij Halo. De beta heeft nu ook echt invloed tenminste.

 

Is een beetje verdeeld tussen 1 en 3. En beide hebben hun voor en nadelen

 

Deel 1 had maar één nadeel (voor mij) en dat was de host-advantage.

Gears Ultimate met z'n dedicated servers is voor mij echt de beste shooter ooit dus

 

Ja die delay en host advantage idd..

 

Voor deze game verkoop ik mijn PS4 en haal ik een One met Gears 4. Tering....... Ik wil het hebben.

 

Gears 1 is de laatste multiplayer versus game die ik heb gespeeld. Was erg vet toen. Vond de campaigns van de drie delen ook goed. Grote kans dat ik deze dus ook wel ga halen, maar wss niet op de release.

 

Ryan Cleven als leaddesigner.. ik kijk zijn cv, weet niet of ik daar blij van moet worden. Zijn voornamelijk race/sport games die hij gemaakt heeft!

Al zijn er vast wel genoeg andere mensen die het ook kunnen

 

Zegt niet zoveel. Is niet zo dat hij de gamemaps zelf helemaal maakt. Leaddesigner is gewoon de overal "baas" van alle designers en zorgt ervoor dat ieder puzzelstukje in elkaar past.

 

Hmmm, wil eerst die wapens in actie zien voordat ik ze ga beoordelen.


edit: wilde net die enemies posten, maar zie dat jij dat alweer hebt gedaan

 

GOTY

 

man man man wat heb ik zin in deze game zeg waauw.

 

Hoezo zijn we opeens ziekhyped over deze game jongens, leg uit. Ik zie een zooi screenshots, grafisch niet heel mooier dan de eerdere delen. Enfin, hoeft ook niet, games waren al mooi.

Hoezo wordt dit geen Judgement 2.0 en is iedereen hyped as fuck?

 

Omdat deze shit sowieso gewoon awesome wordt @Reckuuza

 

OMDAT DIT NIET GEMAAKT WORDT DOOR DIE DROLLEN STUDIO EN PUUR VOOR DE FANS EN BACK TO THE ROOTS GAAT EN ZE GELEERD HEBBEN VAN DAT GEDROCHT VAN EEN JUDGMENT EN ULTIMATE EDITION AL FOKKING GRUWELIJK WAS

 

Dat, maar dan zonder caps.