You’d be forgiven for thinking this is some kind of joke, after all, the only romance you’ll find in Gears of War 4 is likely to come from the beloved sound of our trusty lancer…as the blade revs up to slice through the hordes of enemies bounding down on JD Fenix and crew. But this is no joke and it seems the guys over at The Coalition want to share the love this Valentine’s Day, with an entire week of themed content fit for the occasion.
For one week starting February 10th players will be able to engage in daily Valentines themed bounties, earn new Gears packs, collect another craftable character and take part in the highly-requested returning game mode, Torque Bow Tag.
But of course, these aren’t the only changes for players to be keeping an eye out for. Along with the new daily content and returning fan-favourite game mode, comes two new maps to grace the multiplayer side of things.
The first map to arrive will be a new experience in a familiar environment. Impact Dark brings players to a remixed version of Impact with a high reduction in visibility. In order to bring a new experience to the well-known map, visibility will be heavily reduced by a heavy smoke covering the entire map. In order to ensure weapons are suitable for combat, weapon pickups have been changed to ensure a closer face to face combat scenario and alter the flow of gameplay.
Snipers are now replaced with Boltoks, Dropshot replaces Torque/EMBAR and the Overkill now sits where Incendiaries used to. This results in a new version of Impact that plays entirely different to the original. The introduction of entirely close range weapons helps build on the pace of the game for more intense gameplay moments in which players need to have their wits about them to become victorious.
The other new map arriving in Gears of War 4 is War Machine. War Machine is possibly one of the most loved maps from the entire Gears of War series and is back with a new setting for the latest outing. Moving away from the old abandoned train station location, War Machine is now set in a new COG settlement, standing out with entirely new and pristine features. Unlike the original, sign’s of life are everywhere in the new setting, from the dangerously active DeeBee security bay, to the train preparing to depart at the end of the platform.
Those with the Gears of War 4 Season Pass will find both of the new maps available right now in the Developer Playlist available to Season Pass holders, that features Team Deathmatch, Guardian and King of the Hill game modes with Double XP and an extra 20% Bonus Credits also available in this playlist.
That’s not all though and the guys over at The Coalition have certainly been listening to their fan feedback on the next change coming to Gears of War 4.
For those that made their voices known, and the rest of us who haven’t yet had chance, the spawn system is being changed in Guardian, with players now set to respawn on the team leader. This will offer a perfect opportunity to gain a tactical advantage for those working as a team, whilst preventing the monotonous spawn killing seen for too long now. This in turn means that it will be down to the leader to ensure a safe position for his/her team and will be of great help in the new Impact Dark map in which visibility will be an issue. Once more this is another feature that can be tried early by Season Pass holders this week in the Developer Playlist and looks set to bring a much-needed change to one of the many great game modes on offer in Gears of War 4.
Whilst that is everything that will be included in the Valentines update, the future plans for Gears of War 4 have been made clearer with the announcement of some new features set to arrive in future updates.
A new update, set to arrive in March, looks set to bring about the arrival of more highly anticipated Legacy Characters following on from Dizzy’s release which will mark a steady flow of new characters from both the COG and Locust factions, as well as new Core and Competitive lobbies to help players choose their online match experience.
Whilst the upcoming March arrivals look set to delight, the new features making their way to players this sometime this summer look to be something that will please the fans.
For those that relish a difficult challenge, the upcoming ‘Inconceivable’ difficulty that will be available for both Campaign and Horde mode looks set to bring a new level of rage-inducing gameplay to the table for the very best of Gears players, along with the new IronMan mode that will also sit alongside both modes.
On top of this will be the introduction of Level 6 skills for all class skills as well as more exciting skills for existing classes and new achievements to go along with all the upcoming features.
There’s nothing yet to say exactly what these new features will contain but new information is set to be announced closer to release, and in the meantime we are sure to find plenty to keep us occupied with the new additions making their way via the Valentine’s Day celebrations from February 10th.
