Gears Of War 4

Gears Of War 4 will be hitting the shelves on the 11th of October this year.  The game is being developed by the good folks over at The Coalition and will be published by Microsoft Studios.  Gears 4 is of course going to be a massive console exclusive on the Xbox One, as the big M takes the fight to Sony in the run up to the silly season madness, Gears 4 will be front and centre in that fight, in an attempt to get more Xbox One consoles into people's sitting rooms.  I'd imagine this will be bundled with just about every single version of the Xbox One that's available right now.  Gears 4 will also be making its way to Microsoft Windows in October.

Gears 4 takes place 25 years the Imulsion Countermeasure weapon laid waste to the Locust and Lambent on Sera, the Countermeasure also forced the humans on Sera to adapt to their new circumstances.  Life on Sera has become extreme, massive windstorms now sweep the planet and there are only hundreds of thousands of humans left according to the COGS.  In a bid to stop the population of Sera dwindling any further the COGS have declared Martial Law and built walled of cities to protect the citizens from the storms that rage outside.  Some folks on Sera choose not to live within the walled cities and have decided to take their chances beyond the walls, the "Outsiders" as they are known often launch raids on COG controlled territory to gather supplies to aid their survival.

Gears 4 is a 3rd person cover based shooter, in my opinion it has remained one of the best titles in that genre on any system since the original launched on the Xbox 360 back in 2006.  The gameplay has always remained solid throughout the series, the titles have always been soaked in atmosphere and the multiplayer has remained fast, furious and most importantly fun.  Gears 4 looks to keep the trend going, from what I've seen so far it certainly drips atmosphere, the gameplay is classic Gears, lots of set pieces, massive mounts of gun play and close quarter chainsaw action.  They are not re-inventing the wheel here, but more giving it a bit of oil to help it turn as smooth as possible.

This is a big one for Microsoft, Gears 4 has to deliver, they are not closing the gap on the PS4 and the Xbox One needs a killer exclusive in the run up to Xmas, I know we have ReCore and Forza Horizon 3 coming along soon too but with no Halo this year, Gears 4 is the biggest and most important exclusive title landing on the Xbox One in 2016.  With just a few weeks to wait, the hype machine will kick into full swing pretty soon, expect to see this everywhere, lets hope it turns out to be as good as it looks so far.