Gears of War Reloaded (PS5)
January 29, 2026
The Gears of War franchise has always been colored by my mindset from when I was first introduced to the game. So let's start there, 2006.I was two years deep into my infatuation with Halo 2. LAN parties were all the rage, and I was a high school student that had nothing but time and a group of friends with that same privilege. I had then (and still have now) one friend in particular with whom I played with the most. He and I had known each other since kindergarten and were attached at the hip when it came to games. Between the release of Halo 2 and Gears of War, we played Halo 2 on a near daily basis. When the weather was nice, I would ride my bicycle to his house, then we--along with his brother--would play split screen or pass the controller during online matches. When I went home, we'd hop onto Xbox Live and get a few more rounds in. To say Halo 2 was a part of our lives at that time is an understatement, we lived and breathed it.
On a day that was shaping up to be much like the days I had been enjoying for the past two years, I made it over to my friend's house. His brother was already glued to the television. It sounded heavy, an unfamiliar pattering of gunfire could be heard from the entryway. My friend excitingly welcomed me into the home stating, "you gotta check this new game we got." When I finally made it to the couch, I saw Gears of War for the first time. Soon I was able to jump in myself. I remember the reload mechanic being explained to me. I had to make sure to click the button again at the right time to make sure my gun didn't jam. An interesting new mechanic at a time where games were competing against one another to be the most 'real.' Still, it wasn't long before the negativity set in. It hit me that this game was marking the end of an era. An era I quite liked. Were we done with Halo 2? Was this the next game we would be collectively investing our time into? I wasn't ready to move on. I made that known then, finding all sorts of small little criticisms to point out, never buying a copy for myself, and making sure any multiplayer suggestions were quickly redirected to old faithful. I was successful at the time. Gears of War never took hold the way Halo 2 did, but then again nothing ever did.
Time passed, twenty years now. In that time I've actually played through Gears of War a couple times. The first time was in college, as I was hoping to finally see what the fuss was actually about. Some time passed before the 'Ultimate Edition' released, and it was around then that I realized I remembered next to nothing about my first time playing through the game. So, I ran through it a second time. Even that was ten years ago. Microsoft decided to give the game another chance to stick with me through it's 'Reloaded' version. This gets us to today. At the beginning of Reloaded, I reflected on my high school memories, my college memories, and my 'Ultimate Edition' memories, actual thoughts about the game itself were scarce. Something about this game remains slippery in my mind, and I'm not sure why. So, I went into this playthrough with the hope of finding something positive to grasp on to. I left my 'hater hat' at the door so to speak. It's easy to do something like that when you can barely remember why you put that hat on in the first place. Sure, my high school buddy and I remain in touch, but the last time we played anything seriously was within the same calendar year of the first Twilight movie.
Anyways, I can concede after all this time that Gears of War was a game that deserved my time of day. Still not a favorite by any means, but it deserves some credit for trying. There are two main takeaways that I plan to remember from this thing. The first being the game's brief glimpses into some A-grade level design. A whole ton of the game is corridor marching through waves of enemies, engaging in some cover-based shooting occasionally on the way. The most interesting moments are when it is decidedly not that. A byproduct of its design for four-player co-op, from time to time the game asks you to choose a path down a fork in the road. It could take the easy route of isolating the players to their own sub-corridors, but it instead twists these corridors around one another and offers glimpses between them. You may be sweeping a ground floor, while your teammates sweep above. The game will let you know that because you will at times look up and see your teammates working their way through the path you chose to ignore. The spaces feel more fully realized as a result, and its a beautiful thing. The trick is laid bare in a section of a mine where the two paths are visible to one another for the entirety of that segment. You find both you and your teammates pushing deeper into your respective corridors, but now you can assist them in taking down their enemies and they can shoot over to your side as well. It adds to the chaos of the fight, it makes the game feel bigger than it is, and its something I'd love to see more games take inspiration from.
Though less inspiring, I also appreciated how the game played with its lighting. In certain night-segments of the game there are enemies that will swoop in on you immediately unless you're able to stay within a safe glow of light. As a result, the game has a lot of fun making sure you notice its--for the time--awe inducing lighting effects. To me, 'Conflagation' in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is perhaps the best lighting display ever in a video game, but I can at least see an argument that Act II of Gears of War may have held that tile back in 2006. The game may have been a little too proud of itself though, as the game continues the light/dark mechanic starts to wear thin. By the end, especially when it has you driving the 'Junker' vehicle equipped with a light-cannon, it brought to mind the Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black. I've never seen it, but it sure felt like I played it here.
The game did take some other swings that didn't land as well for me. For instance, the game has overly scripted segments that are great in concept, but require to you to give up your agency as a player in exchange. In one such example, you reach the edge of darkness, you can see a propane tank next to a car in the distance. If you shoot the propane tank, maybe that will burn in a way to let you proceed without being taken in the dark. You shoot the tank, the car begins rolling down the hill towards a far off destination. A segment echoing a scene from the film Children of Men. You're Clive Owen kicking a car into neutral, rolling it down a hill soundlessly as you make your escape under the cover of night. Except, more likely than not, you as the player don't have the necessary context to participate in the call and response here, you've missed your opportunity to trail the car closely, instead you die. The illusion is shattered and on your second attempt you're mindlessly triggering a miniature cut scene with some passive participation. It's still a neat idea, but they did not quite nail it. It isn't actually fun, but it sure is interesting. That notion may be Gears of War in a nutshell.
In the years that have passed since the initial release, I've often heard how one of the inspirations for Gears of War was the Resident Evil series. To be honest, this 'inspiration' feels more like set dressing. Early in the game there are corridors and hallways that feel like they're art assets straight from Resident Evil. Near the end of the game there is an extended segment that you could mistake for the Spencer Mansion on screenshots alone. Still, to the extent Gears of War tried to evoke the feeling of actually playing Resident Evil, I believe it failed. The closest they get is in a mine cart section, but even there it feels so out of place with the rest of the game, it is simply an anomaly that violates the norm. For the most part, it never feels as though it is engaging with its inspirations on any deeper level, and I would posit that Gears of War is a weaker game for it.
My playthrough ended on a sour note, my final fight with the boss on the train was extremely glitched out. The boss didn't move, didn't fire, I just shot away at him until a cutscene triggered. At the conclusion of my third playthrough of this story, the game essentially quit on me. It declared, "I'm done explaining myself." Maybe the problem in all this is me, maybe taking that 'hater hat' off isn't as easy as I thought.