Episode 18: Gears of Fall Part Deux - Revisiting Gears of War 4

Hello all,

We are back to talk Gears of War!

A whole year has gone by since the first Gears of Fall adventure. This season there are fewer games and books to talk about (and maybe not as memorable) but we are re-examining the series and where it’s at now.

We start off the season discussing Gears of War 4 (after our usual hour long ramble on random shittttt). Gears of War 4 arrived in 2016 (RIP HARAMBE) and was met with high praise from review outlets. Fans didn’t feel as strongly due to the story decisions and new characters. While I don’t feel as intensely about the negatives of the game, it’s certainly a downgrade from the original trilogy (we will forget Judgement).

The game was developed by The Coalition - a dev team thrown together with a few folks in the Microsoft offices who were looking to work in-house. Rod Fergusson, producer on original games, took the role of Director for Gears 4. Microsoft had to buy the Gears IP from Epic Games in order to make it a console exclusive and therefore put all the money behind this title. From a production standpoint, I think that shows. It’s still a good looking game that runs smoothly and objectively plays well. But the story…

JD can’t hold anything to his father, Marcus. He’s the worst - a weenie. Dell who is also introduced is as annoying and relies on the one line sarcastic quips that happen EVERY SCENE. It’s boring. Kait is the only character with a story to tell and they shove her off to the side (until Gears of War 5). When Marcus arrives on the screen, everyone looks so lame. The same can be said when Baird and Cole show up too - like those are GOOD CHARACTERS who were DEVELOPED.

Gears of War 4 is not a bad game - just an OK one but certainly fans would want more when they had nothing but the best (except Judgement but shhhhh).

Hope you enjoy Mitch 💀 and I looking at this series again. Book talks coming and we will also be covering Gears 5 and Gears Tactics!

If you want to look at all the Gears-stuff covered thus far, you can view HERE.

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