Gears of War: Reloaded is off to a pretty bad start, opening to “Mixed” reviews on Steam as players call out everything from performance issues and constant crashes to missing pre-order items and even a graphical setting which prevents you from opening the game.
That’s just scratching the surface, too. Matchmaking issues are another key complaint, and it was advertised on the Steam page—and in trailers—that the remaster would support split screen co-op on PC, but all references have been removed, and no such feature is present in the final game. Suffice to say, fans aren’t happy.
Only 49 percent of the reviews are positive.
“Let’s start releasing games when they are finished, please,” reads one review. “ANOTHER lazy cash grab from Microsoft,” one fan put it simply. “Behold, our remaster of a remaster. A PC port of another PC port! AND SOMEHOW IT JUST BARELY WORKS,” a clearly frustrated player wrote.
Others note the lack of an ADS sensitivity or FOV slider, the inability to keybind cover and roll to different keys, broken ultrawide, forced aim assist, texture popping, and 30fps cutscenes. Steam Deck fares even worse, with significant performance dips, no audio, and infinite loading. “Needs a hotfix badly” is putting it lightly.
Microsoft has confirmed that it’s “aware” of these issues, highlighting the missing pre-order items and matchmaking woes, and is “investigating” them as we speak, but there’s no word on when we can expect a fix, or any comment on the split-screen controversy.
In the meantime, one fan has put together a handy guide on how to get the game running again should it start crashing whenever you hit ‘play’.
How To Fix Gears Of War: Reloaded Crashing On Startup
Why this happens is unclear, as some players report that selecting ‘Ultra’ graphics caused it, while others say merely changing any graphics settings broke their game. But, as explained by Sylvie in their review, fixing it is simple:
- Go to C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\Coalition.
- Delete the ‘WarGame’ folder.
- Restart the game.
However, if you log into your Microsoft account, the game will crash on startup again. That means, until a patch is rolled out, you won’t be able to access cross-platform multiplayer. It’s not ideal, but at least this workaround lets you play the game you just spent $39.99 on.

Gears of War: Reloaded
- Released
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August 26, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
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The Coalition
- Multiplayer
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Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
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Yes
- Number of Players
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Single-player
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