The Gears of War: Reloaded beta has just wrapped up its first weekend here on Xbox, PlayStation and PC - with one more to come featuring some bonus content next weekend. While we're looking forward to getting stuck into a couple more classic Gears maps and modes once this Friday evening rolls around, we thought we'd drop by to give you our thoughts on the beta so far; a little taste to see if it's worth jumping into during its second weekend.
The first thing we want to talk about right out of the gate is the fact that this is Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, straight up. The menus are the same, the music is the same, the mechanics are the same. If you've played a lot of Gears Ultimate over the years like we have, there's very little new content to go at here - barring some fresh weapons skins added into the mix.
The visuals and frame rate have been boosted of course — we're looking at up to 4K resolution and 120FPS support in multiplayer — and we're seeing some lighting tweaks over the 2015 remake, but other than that, this is all very familiar. So, we probably might as well continue these impressions without that Gears Ultimate slant on things, right? Well, in that case, this is a back-to-basics Gears experience with plenty of fun to be had.
Despite having its roots in 2006's Gears of War — a game that notably added in its multiplayer component right towards the end of development — Gears Reloaded is satisfying to play, with weighty & deliberate movement mechanics, crunchy combat and well-balanced maps to fight it out over. If you've played some of the newer Gears titles the cover mechanics can feel a little 'sticky' at times, but that's part of the way that these older GoW games played - and it actually serves to slow the pace down here in Reloaded, which we quite like.
Back to the maps for a minute, Gears Reloaded's first beta weekend contains just the three: Gold Rush, Gridlock and Raven Down. The former was actually a PC-only addition back in the original title before being added to Xbox in Gears Ultimate, and its verticality adds something a little different to the mix. It pales in comparison to the other two though - Gridlock and Raven Down are some proper Gears staples and we've loved revisiting them, especially Gridlock which in many ways is the quintessential Gears of War map.
As was the case back in the day, multiplayer combat all centres around the Gnasher Shotgun starting weapon and the plethora of item pickups spread across each map - don't be expecting to use the Lancer Rifle often apart from for its chainsaw bayonet. Newcomers to Gears MP will have to quickly adapt to the close quarters, shotgun-based fighting that's gone on to define the series - a style that's especially evident here in Reloaded. It's still satisfying-as-heck though, and despite some inconsistencies with Gears' most famous weapon, it remains a blast to use to this day.
There are a good chunk of Gears characters to play as across both the COG and Locust factions, although their differences are purely cosmetic. As was the case in GoW Ultimate, the team added in certain characters from future Xbox 360-era Gears games, and it's nice to have that little more variety than what was present in the 2006 original. As we mentioned before as well, starting weapon skins return from the decade-old Xbox One remake, with the team actually adding a long list of camos that are brand-new to Reloaded too. Nice touch!
In terms of how the beta is functioning right now on Xbox, we have no real complaints, save for some server errors when we first tried to play on Friday night. Once we've loaded into matches, connections have been very stable and lag-free, and that's with crossplay enabled - something developer The Coalition will have been keen to stress test here. It's all been working pretty smoothly on Xbox, and we hope that carries over to next weekend - and indeed the full game.
As we spoke about in our very early reaction to the announcement of Gears of War: Reloaded, this is very much a product to get Gears into the hands of PlayStation players, and that's true of this beta as well. The experience is near-identical to Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Xbox, which is no bad thing - it just feels extremely familiar as a result. If it's been donkeys' years since you've played some old school Gears multiplayer, this beta is definitely worth a quick blast on, but don't expect much of anything new - the visual and performance upgrades don't make much of a difference either, all told. Bring on the full game though; we're ready to give that OG campaign and the full multiplayer suite another proper play here in 2025.