Gears Of War’s multiplayer can be
punishing. Unless you’re willing to
put the time in to master the Gnasher
shotgun and learn how to propel
your character between sections of
waist-high cover, your survivability is
notoriously nonexistent. For interested
players that haven’t had time to learn
the meta – the ebbs and flows of
Gears’ multiplayer rhythm – there’s
a high chance that you’ll wash out
of Versus before you’ve even had a
chance to settle into it. A big part of
expanding the life of Gears is ensuring
that there’s somewhere that players of
every skill level can play, that nobody
will feel as if their time is being wasted.That’s a big undertaking, particularly
with so many different types of players
to cater to. “It was important for us
to stay focused on the thinking that,
‘There’s going to be a bunch of people
that have never played [Gears Of
War] before coming in, so how do we
welcome them into our experience?’”
Fergusson adds, explaining that The
Coalition’s intention wasn’t to take
anything away from Gears 5, but to
add in new content entirely to support
the widening expanse of franchise
familiarity and skill that has come
to the fore through Game Pass. “We
didn’t want to betray the hardcore
who’ve been with us since the“We want you to jump in
at whatever level you feel
comfortable playing”
064 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE