‘Gears of War’ on PS5 Is Better Than It Ever Was on Xbox

Xbox Game Studios and The Coalition added even more functionality specific to the PS5 version, stuff you can’t possibly get on Xbox. For one, the game supports the Adaptive Triggers on the PS5’s DualSense controller, making each gunshot feel like you’re fighting against the kick of the prototypical “Lancer” machine gun. The DualSense has built-in speakers that rarely get used by third-party developers. The Coalition added sounds so characters speaking on the radio will come through the controller. And when you rev the Lancer’s famed chainsaw bayonet, you’ll hear the whine through the DualSense’s thin speakers. This doesn’t add much to the experience other than to annoy any friend sitting down for split-screen co-op. It’s a big reason why I kept the setting enabled for close to the seven hours it took to finish the campaign. The chainsaw noise kept me going when the 20-year-old gameplay and dry, human meat sticks of characters failed to entice me. I just hope the eventual Netflix movie doesn’t go full meathead mode, like the original game did.

Gears of War: Reloaded plays and runs better on PS5 Pro

Thanks to the enhanced GPU capabilities and extra AI upscaling, the Gears of War: Reloaded on the PlayStation 5 Pro is the best way to max out the game on consoles. The game makes use of the system-exclusive PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution. This variety of AI upscaling takes the game at a lower resolution and upscales it to a higher resolution ,while keeping the performance gain. Reloaded doesn’t have any preset graphics options such as “Quality” or “Performance.” Instead, you have the option to set 120Hz mode to “Auto.” With that enabled, I was able to play the game at the fabled 120 fps in 4K through most indoor environments. Once the action went outside, the frame rate could dip into the 90 fps or even high 80 fps, especially when watching the light show while firing the “Hammer of Dawn” orbital satellite laser.

Gears of War: Reloaded uses AMD’s older FidelityFX Super Resolution on the regular PS5 and Xbox Series X for its upscaling. On the PS5 Pro, I didn’t notice any explicit graphical glitches or artifacts caused by the AI resolution booster. Even with the lack of graphical options, this is a good port of an 11-year-old remaster of a 20-year-old game. If only the first Gears of War was truly worth slogging through that original campaign for the second or perhaps third time.

We’re in a strange time for gaming. Xbox has seemingly relented on the entire concept of game exclusivity. Already, former PC- and Xbox-only titles like Forza Horizon 5 have come to the PS5 and quickly become the system’s top sellers. The only legacy of Microsoft’s gaming arm you’ll find in-game is when Xbox demands you sign into a Microsoft account after you first launch the title.

Actually playing the Reloaded is less of a nostalgic thrill ride. Gears of War practically invented the idea of the cover shooter. You press a button, and gruff, tough, and always-grunting Marcus Fenix magnetizes to the nearest wall. The game wants players to stick to cover as much as possible, popping off shots from the comfortable safety of your chest-high wall. In combat, you’ll often dive around out of cover to take care of skulking, pint-sized “Retches” or perform a sort of jig whenever the enemy AI decides to vault over a wall right next to you.

The visual upgrade on PS5 belies the fact that Gears of War was never that incredible a game. I grew up an Xbox 360 diehard. My 12-year-old brain couldn’t recognize how every dull gray hallway, stacked with enough chest-high walls to take cover behind, was just a funnel for the game to shove more muscle-bound, snarling Locusts for you to shoot. Neither Fenix nor his compatriots share much about their background, their ambitions, their worries, or anything to make you care about them or even humanity’s plight.

Everything is meat. The characters—the titular “Gears”—have legs like ham hocks and necks so thick they attach to their heads like unpopped pimples. Bodies split apart into thick chunks of rare steak when buzzed through with a chainsaw or the near-uncountable machine gun turret sections. To a pubescent me, the combat was satisfying and visceral. Twenty years later, playing the original Gears of War is like trudging through a mire. Enemies are bullet sponges that soak ammo until they fall to the ground like they’re performing a pratfall on a stage. The quickest way to breeze through combat is with high-damage weapons, such as the “Longshot” sniper rifle or “Boomshot” rocket launcher. The “Torque” bow, a crossbow with an explosive bolt, is still the most satisfying weapon in the game. Everything else feels there and done by comparison.

Imagine if we got Gears of War 2 on PS5, too

Gears of War: Reloaded would have been a much bigger deal if it had included remasters of the original game’s immediate sequels. Imagine if suddenly you could play the original Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune on Xbox Series X. Would it make nearly as big an impression as Gears on PS5? Most fans of the series remember the games for what Naughty Dog accomplished in Uncharted 2 through 4. Compared to later entries, the original game was a slog through messy gunplay and odd level design. In the same way, Gears of War found its stride with Gears of War 2. Not only did the sequel have more level variety and a longer campaign, but it also helped us feel an ounce of empathy for the characters. It also offered us such memorable lines as “They’re sinking cities with a giant worm.”

The only players who should want to play Gears of War: Reloaded are those nostalgic for the Xbox 360 days, or else they think they’d like to spend a few sit-down sessions in a time capsule. The in-game voice lines gave me flashbacks to the time my brother and I spent hours trying to beat the game on its hardest difficulty, where every death sent us back to the last checkpoint to hear the same inane lines over and over again.

Gears of War: Reloaded on PS5 is less a story about a game and more about what it represents. At the time of the Xbox 360, Halo and Gears of War were Microsoft’s two largest IPs that it jealously guarded. Should Reloaded represent the true end of the console wars? There were sure signs that was already the case. Xbox has shown its intent to publish its games on both Nintendo and Sony platforms, but what about the opposite? In the company’s last earnings report published earlier this month, Sony VP Sadahiko Hayakawa told investors the company was “moving away from a hardware-centric business to more of a community-based engagement business.” A recent job posting shared online suggested the company wished to publish more first-party titles on Steam and even Xbox. But PlayStation may not go “full Xbox” and center its business model on a subscription like Xbox Game Pass.

“I doubt they’ll deprioritize hardware as such,” Karl Kontus, the general manager of Video Game Insights at analyst firm Sensor Tower, told Gizmodo. “Their aim is to just build out other revenue sources on top of that, such as the PS+ subscription, live services, and cross-platform with PC and maybe handhelds. I really don’t think this means PS+ will start looking more like Game Pass.”

Xbox may continue to be in a league of its own. If it continues on this path, the inevitable next step is to put the next Halo on PlayStation. At this point, anything can happen.