Gears of War 4 has quite the potential to become Game of the Year. Although a lot of people are already saying that for the game Inside. I feel that Gears 4 will overshadow the success of Inside. Other than the obvious reason that Gears is a AAA game while Inside is not. I think Gears will be successful in the fact that they’re changing up the formula. Let’s look at the facts first.
Gears of War 4 is being developed by The Coalition instead of Epic Games. Now sometimes changing hands can be looked at as a bad thing. Especially considering the less than stellar success of Gears of War: Judgement which was developed by People Can Fly. But that aside we’ve seen what The Coalition has done with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and The Coalition also fortunately has Rod Fergusson as the head of their company. So with Rod Fergusson they at the very least have someone from Epic Games who played a key role in the development of the Gears of War series. So I would say in terms of the company itself they can handle making a good continuation of the Gears series. Now let’s look at the competition.
Gears of War 4 releases on October 11th. In terms of competition for that month it has Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2. Now both of those games are heavy hitters in the AAA scene. In my opinion though I don’t think Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 will be successful enough to outsell Gears of War 4. I truly think Gears of War 4 has enough hype from E3 alone and enough potential to outsell both of these games.
Now to get into the inner bits of the game that we know already. First off the graphics. The game is made with Unreal Engine 4. This is a pretty big deal for the game. All the way back in 2006 when Gears of War 1 came out. That was the flagship title for Epic Games new Unreal Engine 3. At the time it was pretty impressive. For awhile Unreal Engine 3 was the definitive engine for Epic Games they would use it for Gears of War 2 all the way up to Gears of War Judgement. The engine would be upgraded throughout this period of time. But after awhile any game made with Unreal Engine 3 looked the same. Common characteristics shared throughout most Unreal Engine 3 game were frequent use of the color brown. A lot of dark areas due to poor lighting effects and just kind of shoddy textures. Although in 2012 Unreal Engine 4 was released and it changed the standards on visual fidelity. Take for example this comparison:
That’s the kind of difference in graphical fidelity we’ll see with Gears of War 4 compared to it’s predecessors. Now on to the next topic gameplay. Now unfortunately I was not able to play the multiplayer beta when that went live. Although that being said I heard good reception from people that did play it. I honestly can’t say much on this topic due to lack of information. But this much I can say it should be good. They’ve had a lot of time to work out any kinks and the general fundamental gameplay mechanics have been worked out throughout the predecessors.
Ultimately though the thing that peaks my interest the most is the single player. I’ve never been a fan of the story for the Gears of War franchise. But after watching the E3 trailer for it my interest has peaked. The main reason being it looks like they’re taking the series back to a more darker route similar to the first one and that could be really beneficial. A lot of people liked the dark somber atmosphere that the first game had. And based on the trailers they could be bringing that back with Gears of War 4. I think the game has a lot of potential and I think the gaming community is ready for another good Gears of War game.
