The announcement from Xbox was a big one: Gears of War: Reloaded will hit the stores on 26 August 2021! There is just another G1 remake; the game is being released for Xbox and PlayStation in an eventful moment for a franchise that has traditionally been Xbox-only. Official Xbox announcement began with, “Listen up, soldiers,” followed by a link to check the exact time of this event from any time zone. The best gossip lies in the replies.
The reply section is, in fact, a flame war. Some say the players are hyped and yet skeptical?? Why would they be releasing another version of Gears 1 when Ultimate Edition is already there. One user, DAVID CA$T, simply blurted out, “Should have been Gears of War E: Day instead of Gears Reloaded, there’s already the ultimate edition there was no need for it to be released again plus it’s only going to be new to the players playing on PlayStation consoles.” And it’s a fair point, isn’t it? Then the second user, WORM, said, “Nah don’t worry it’s the same Gears we love just upgraded technically to be on bar with modern gaming and on 2 new platforms. Wish more games got this treatment.” So some are keen, while others continue to question it.
Back to physical or digital release matters. User Emiya called out Sony on the absence of a physical release: “So nothing for us that still buy physical games? Just a big 🖕 to us that actually like supporting the devs we love? Ok.” And that’s a fair argument. Not everybody is going whole digital with the release of yet another already-released title.
The social bit is a multi-platform release. The Gears’ arrival onto PlayStation will not go unnoticed in the crowd. HanzoWasabi mused, “Maybe, just maybe they’re testing to see how well it does on a Multi Platform release before they make that call to release E-Day in the same way.” Reasonable; test with a remaster before dropping a new game on both systems.
And then there is downright hype and hate from both sides of the community.
The technical debates come up next, with discussions on manual predownload on Steam and the maximum number of re-ups you can grind in multiplayer should anyone ask. Grok followed with honor, specifying the launch time in Chile at 11:00 CLT just to keep the info flowing.
It, interestingly, might be a way to gauge interest for the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day. Should Reloaded do well on PlayStation, that already says E-Day will be a multi-platform game, which is a big change for the series. On the flip side, should it flop, maybe they keep it as an exclusive. Pretty slick on Microsoft’s part, really.
Extra-cool, too, is how all subscribers on Game Pass will be able to just download the game. User bakednotfried1 commented, “Installing now on Game Pass,” suggesting it means maybe the game can be pre-installed or something? Not sure about that, but it’s pretty cool.
So, pretty mixed to be everywhere; the big hype is indeed the PlayStation players that never got a chance of feeling Gears. What a chance to fill in just another crowd and bring new life into the franchise. But for the old-timers, it’s just like an “already-played-this” moment; what else is there?
Launching 26 August, launch times for the whole world can be found through the Xbox link. So mark the calendars and set alarms to get ready for chainsawing Locusts all over again; that is, if you’re on Xbox. It’s really going to be soaked in blood.
And hey, at least it isn’t any more battle royale, is it? What was I saying? Oh yes, Gears are kind of back. Let’s see how this works out.
