Gears 5 is returning with heaps of new content in an update to coincide with the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X | S on Nov. 10, per developer The Coalition speaking with IGN. The studio will be delivering New Game+, Inconceivable and Ironman difficulty modes, more multiplayer updates, and even more of WWE wrestler and movie star Dave Bautista before development on the game wraps up. Plus, there is campaign DLC called Hivebusters coming in December.
New Game+ will offer a more customizable experience that won’t need to be unlocked first in any version of the game, and Inconceivable Mode will provide an extra added layer of difficulty to the original Gears 5 campaign offerings. Meanwhile, The Coalition Principal Lead Producer Zoë Curnoe likened Ironman Mode to the intensity found in games such as XCOM because the difficulty mode sees players “trying to play through with one life.”
Come Nov. 10, Gears 5 will additionally receive new weapon skins, Jack upgrades carry-over, Mutators (such as Big Head Mode), new achievements, and new skins for Kait, Del, and JD. The most notable new skin offering coming to the campaign via update is a Bautista outfit and voice-over for Marcus Fenix. Bautista had previously shown up in Gears 5 multiplayer, making this new skin somewhat of a logical next step, considering the WWE star’s interest in participating in the series.
On the multiplayer front, Operation 5 is bringing changes in response to player feedback. Gears 5 Executive Producer Alex Grimbley said, “What we’ve really done there is try to make a lot of the game more accessible, not only for people coming back, but also the people that are new to the game. We’ve done things like separation of characters in classes, which were funny. … But if we thought about how we want to kind of move forward, just giving players more choice was one of our key things. Giving the players the choice to choose which class they want to apply to which character is I think really powerful.”
Additionally, future Operations will better tie together thanks to stronger themes and will come with more maps in general.
Finally, the Hivebusters campaign DLC in December will be three-to-four hours in length and optimized for Xbox Series X | S, but The Coalition isn’t sharing any more details yet, including whether it will cost anything.
