With the news about Gears of War: Reloaded now out in the wild, we're turning our attention to what exactly has changed from 2015's Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - including what Xbox players can expect to have been tweaked and improved for this new release of the original Gears of War.
As we noted in a recent reaction to news of this Gears re-release, the core of Gears: Reloaded is still based on 10-year old tech - but that doesn't mean we're not going to see plenty of small changes and enhancements for this version either. In fact, the team at Xbox Wire has detailed all of the big differences - which we'll throw down below:
- 4K resolution
- 60 FPS in Campaign
- 120 FPS in Multiplayer
- High Dynamic Range (HDR)
- Dolby Vision & 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos
- 7.1.4 3D Spatial Audio
- Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)
- 4K assets and remastered textures
- Enhanced post-processing visual effects
- Improved shadows and reflections
- Super resolution with improved anti-aliasing
- Zero loading screens during Campaign
Digging into this list of changes here, we have some notable improvements - particularly in terms of that multiplayer frame rate and the team's promise of "zero loading screens during campaign". Gears 5 hit those same frame rate targets across Xbox Series X and S, so it's nice to see that being brought over to Gears: Reloaded. The lack of loading screens will be another bonus that comes with targeting machines that use SSDs rather than older hard drive tech; like that seen in Xbox One.
The rest of this is all pretty standard stuff, but it's welcome nonetheless. We are hoping that Microsoft gives us some more information on the Xbox Series S version of the game specifically, because for now, it's unclear whether that version will bring 4K resolution and 4K assets as listed up above. What's clear is that this will be the best way to play the original Gears of War on Xbox, regardless of which Series console you own.