Gears of War: Reloaded - Reviews Thread

I know part of the appeal with this port is how dead simple it was. Ultimate Edition was in great shape, ran like greased butter on any PC. Slap that into the PS5 Port-O-Matic machine and you're done.

The problem with that is, it's the first Gears experience for so many Sony players. They won't let it off the hook the way Xbox players will who know the series.

Probably would have been better to not release it at all, or actually properly remake and modernize it
 
Yeah, weird to see this particular game being downrated when seemingly ever week a new remaster comes out of even older games that have aged way, way more than GoW.
 
Can't believe it's been almost 20 years. Couldn't wait to get home to play my copy after work when it just released. I was completely blown away when I played it for the first time.
 
Definitely not just an up-res/fps increase.

In addition to the above, texture quality is improved, shadow density is increased, shadow quality is increased, reflections are improved/added, ambient occlusion is improved, water quality is improved, and lighting is improved:

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mx8MinLBJebe7few.png
 
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I don't really know why they didn't take the opportunity to do a "Gears of War Trilogy - Reloaded".
I'm sure it would have hyped a LOT more and sold much more as well.
 
My first impressions: The Ultimate Edition run terribly on any PC because the stuttering ruined the experience if you unlocked the framerate (at launch the game was even capped to just 30fps). Reloaded runs fine with an unlocked FPS, so at least they fixed the biggest problem with the remake. That being said, I still feel like I'm playing the Ultimate Edition, just with HDR support, so the image isnt as flat. For people who never played GOW I guess Reloaded will be fine, but I consider it a low-effort remaster of a bad remake. They didn't even bother reencoding the cutscenes (or making them run in real time like it was in the original). They added DLSS support and that's also a good thing, but I had to tweak DLSS settings myself, because they used very old version (3.5).

Performance on my RTX4080S:
4K DLAA (J preset / transformer) 70-120fps (average around 100fps. With DLSSQuality 130-170fps.


4K DLAA (J preset)

DLAA-3.jpg


4K DLSS-Quality


DLAA

DLAA-2.jpg


DLSSQ



DLAA


DLAA-1.jpg



DLSSQ



DLAA

DLAA.jpg


DLSSQ



Although HDR improves image quality considerably in Reloaded, the image still isn't as contrasty as in the original game, particularly when you look at the textures. They often look grey and flat.


GOWDE-Win-GDK-2025-08-26-19-01-33-708.jpg
 
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Corporal.Hicks said:
My first impressions: The Ultimate Edition run terribly on any PC because the game was capped at 30 fps. If you tried to uncapped it, the stuttering ruined the experience. Reloaded runs fine with an unlocked FPS, so at least they fixed the biggest problem with the remake. That being said, I still feel like I'm playing the Ultimate Edition, just with HDR support, so the image isnt as flat. For people who never played GOW I guess Reloaded will be fine, but I consider it a low-effort remaster of a bad remake. They didn't even bother including DLSS 4 or 3.7, so I had to tweak DLSS settings myself.

Performance on my RTX4080S:
4K DLAA4 (J preset) 70-120fps (average around 100fps. With DLSSQuality 120-170fps.
Click to expand...
Apparently runs well on the Deck, that would be my go to for this one.
 
Killer8 said:
Sometimes I just don't understand what some reviewers were expecting.

It's a nearly 20 year old game, yes. The upgrade is substantial enough over the '06 original that I doubt you'd notice. It's still a great game. Anyone acting like this is NES game levels of decrepit is out of their minds.

On Xbox, Microsoft gave the game away for free to anyone who already owned the Ultimate Edition. It's also on Game Pass for everyone who has that.

And it's arriving for the first time ever on PlayStation and Steam. For those that do need to pay, it's releasing at a budget RRP of $40 in a world of $80 games.

And the game has cross-play so it doesn't even matter where you pick it up.
Click to expand...

Really good point.
 
Corporal.Hicks said:
My first impressions: The Ultimate Edition run terribly on any PC because the game was capped at 30 fps. If you tried to uncapped it, the stuttering ruined the experience. Reloaded runs fine with an unlocked FPS, so at least they fixed the biggest problem with the remake. That being said, I still feel like I'm playing the Ultimate Edition, just with HDR support, so the image isnt as flat. For people who never played GOW I guess Reloaded will be fine, but I consider it a low-effort remaster of a bad remake. They didn't even bother including DLSS 4 or 3.7, so I had to tweak DLSS settings myself.

Performance on my RTX4080S:
4K DLAA4 (J preset) 70-120fps (average around 100fps. With DLSSQuality 120-170fps.
Click to expand...
Apparently they've made some gameplay tweaks as well, to modernise it, can you tell any difference?
 
Rivdoric said:
I don't really know why they didn't take the opportunity to do a "Gears of War Trilogy - Reloaded".
I'm sure it would have hyped a LOT more and sold much more as well.
Click to expand...

Because that's only one game package sale. Why not sell 3 separate games instead?
 
adamsapple said:
The main point of this release is to bring Gears to the PS5.

Otherwise, this is basically the 2015 Gears Ultimate in higher resolution. Looks like some improvement in texture quality and effects but it's practically the same game in higher res.





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Click to expand...
I have to admit, at first glance I do prefer the look of Ultimate
Anyway my copy arrived today so I'm gonna jump in after work.
Judgment is near..
 
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The_Mike said:
Aging Matt Damon GIF

Me reading this
Click to expand...
The PS5 has 5 years of that time, it's not just you time is moving fast and hardly anything is changing making everything blend together.
Gamer_By_Proxy said:
Yea, Ultimate looks like deeper blacks and it pops more.
Reloaded looks a little washed out in comparison but a lot more crisp. Ultimate still looks a little blurry.
Click to expand...
Yeah it has more character to it, but it's nothing that can't be fixed on our end.
 
Killer8 said:
Sometimes I just don't understand what some reviewers were expecting.

It's a nearly 20 year old game, yes. The upgrade is substantial enough over the '06 original that I doubt you'd notice. It's still a great game. Anyone acting like this is NES game levels of decrepit is out of their minds.

On Xbox, Microsoft gave the game away for free to anyone who already owned the Ultimate Edition. It's also on Game Pass for everyone who has that.

And it's arriving for the first time ever on PlayStation and Steam. For those that do need to pay, it's releasing at a budget RRP of $40 in a world of $80 games.

And the game has cross-play so it doesn't even matter where you pick it up.
Click to expand...
The Office Thank You GIF


Exactly my sentiments.

This is a game that has never been on a sony ecosystem ever. Regardless of it being 20 years old, there is no game like this on the playstation catalogue to this date. If you are in your 30's like me, you've played this game if you owned an xbox, you played the multiplayer if you owned an xbox. You'll play it now for nostalgia and the fact that its upscaled to look pretty, but there is a whole swath of people who have never experienced the franchise and have never seen tried the game that has become the foundation for many of today's Third person type games.
 
Gears of War was a technical marvel in 2006, and sort of pushed the cover shooter hype. But beneath it, and especially 20 years later this has obviously worn off. It was very fun in co-op, and probaby still is. And the MP was actually quite good, if not bare bones. I liked the maps on it. It was just ruined by the p2p in the original 360 version, which should be a thing of the past.

For Playstation owners this is quite novel though, and in the end its 40 bucks. If you'd never played it before and especially if you have a friend who wants to play it too i'd say go for it.
 
Heading home now, really looking forward to jumping into some multiplayer later. Time to shake off the rust and get back to wrecking people like I used to.
I hope works fine in my pc because i don't have gold to play on xbox.
 
Been playing Gears since inception, but getting in to this after being used to 5 I felt like a cripple. And played like one as well. This is going to take some time getting used to again. Man, I kinda forgot how far the controls have come after all.

And the inconsistency... Gotta love 2006!

No matter how much I love the good ol' maps, I'm not sure I'll be staying around.
 
Well, I just finished the Definitive edition a couple of months back in Co-Op. So I think I will skip this one.

Im still waiting for the "GoW 2" Reloaded.

Regardless, kudos to MS for actually punting something in the CD this time. It wasnt that hard, was it?
 
Problem is, nowadays they call everything 'remaster' or 'reloaded' and it looks like if you added fan mods off of nexus. I don't see how that's so fukin' impressive to people.
 
Playing through it now and so happy it's free for me, because if I'm being honest, I'd be pretty upset if I had to pay for it, because it seems a lot like the last remaster of the game. Only thing they've vastly improved upon is the sounds and rumble effects.
 
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