Gears Tactics

Gears Tactics is a turn-based tactics video game developed by Splash Damage in conjunction with The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is a spin-off of the Gears of War franchise and a prequel to the first game, and was released for Microsoft Windows on April 28, 2020. An Xbox One version is in development with an unspecified release date.

Gears Tactics
Developer(s)Splash Damage
The Coalition
Publisher(s)Xbox Game Studios
Composer(s)Edward Patrick White
SeriesGears of War
EngineUnreal Engine 4
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
Xbox One
Xbox Series X
Release
  • Microsoft Windows
  • April 28, 2020
  • Xbox One, Xbox Series X
  • TBC
Genre(s)Turn-based tactics
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

The game is played from a top-down perspective and is a turn-based tactics title in which players issue commands to a squad of human soldiers to eliminate the hostiles in a map and depending on the mission, complete secondary objectives. Players can freely explore the map without being confined to a grid. Each character can perform three actions, such as taking cover, shooting enemies, or remain in overwatch to shoot any moving enemy in their line of sight.[1] When an enemy unit loses most of its health, a friendly unit can move in and execute the downed enemy, which gives all units an additional action point. Players need to throw grenades to destroy erupting Emergence Holes which spawn more Locust enemies.[2] If a friendly unit is downed, players can revive them to bring them back into battle with reduced health. The game has five distinct character classes, with each having its own unique abilities. The characters can be extensively customized with mods, armours, and they can acquire new skills after they level up. Other than story-important "hero" characters, other friendly units are procedurally generated and should these units die in combat, their deaths will be permanent.[3]

In addition to the main campaign, players can complete different side-missions. At numerous points in the story, the player is required to complete one or more side missions to proceed. After the player finishes the campaign, Veteran Mode will be unlocked. It allows players to remix the campaign missions with different modifiers such as bonus damages and accuracy penalty.[3][4] The game, however, does not have a multiplayer mode.[5]

Story

One year after Emergence Day, when a subterranean race of creatures known as the Locust Horde emerged on the surface in a campaign to kill every human on the planet of Sera, Coalition of Ordered Governments leader, Chairman Richard Prescott, orders all major cities outside the Jacinto Plateau to be incinerated by the Hammer of Dawn. In addition, the Chairman had sent mop-up detachments in key-cities to eradicate the surviving Locust. One of the mop-up crews was Alpha Squad, stationed in Aldair City. Among them is Pendulum Wars hero, Sgt. Gabriel Diaz, who had demoted himself to working in the motor pool. Mere hours before the Hammer Strikes, he receives orders from Chairman Prescott and Major Sid Redburn to retrieve classified intel files from the CIC building. Sgt. Diaz and Major Redburn find the files that reveals to be about a Locust scientist named Ukkon, who has been responsible for the various creatures the Locust have been using as instruments of war. The Hammer of Dawn then destroys the city of Aldair, but Sgt. Diaz and Major Redburn survive. However, Ukkon destroyed the army base and killed everyone. Prescott then orders Diaz to assassinate Ukkon and is granted the rights to do so by any means possible. In need of soldiers for the fight, Sgt. Diaz and Major Redburn rescue another mop-up squad, Echo-Five, but discover that Ukkon has been killing the mop-up crews. After rescuing a Stranded group, a militia of civilians who survived the Hammer Strikes, they also join Alpha Squad. Their leader, Mikayla Dorn, is aware of Ukkon and escorts Sgt. Diaz and Major Redburn to the city of Claybourne where Ukkon frequents. Upon spotting Ukkon, Mikayla manages to shoot Ukkon in the mouth and apparently kill him. Ukkon, however, comes back to life and immediately repairs the damages done to his face. Sgt. Diaz then realizes that the COG is once again holding secrets like before, and fears that they will get them killed.

With Ukkon a bigger threat then they thought, Sgt. Diaz then relocated his entire squad into the deserts of Vasgar to teach them how to fight and prepare for the battle against Ukkon. Eventually, Alpha discovers an empty canister that Ukkon had used to inhale earlier. Mikayla translates the canister as belonging to the Nedroma Health Institute. Upon arriving, Mikayla reveals that Nedroma was a quarantine zone and research facility for Rustlung, a fatal condition caused by the exposure of Imulsion fumes. Upon finding Ukkon's stash of canisters, Mikayla reveals that the canisters are full of immune system boosters, but only work against Rustlung, and with devastating side-effects. Realizing Ukkon is dying of Rustlung and in need of the canisters, Sgt. Diaz prepares a trap to lure Ukkon using the immune canisters as bait. Alpha Squad is successful in luring Ukkon and capturing him. However, Ukkon reveals to recognize Major Redburn as an old acquaintance. Major Redburn then knocks out Sgt. Diaz and prepares to drive off with Ukkon, alive and imprisoned, back to Ephyra. Mikayla stops him, and Ukkon manages to break free and escape. Sgt. Diaz and Mikayla then detain Major Redburn, with Chairman Prescott ordering to execute him for treason. Major Redburn then reveals to them that when he was younger, he worked for a genetics lab called the New Hope Research Facility, who, like Nedroma, was trying to cure Rustlung. However, the scientists went mad and used genetic experimentation to try and evolve the patients into greater beings, but instead made monsters. Most of the patients lost their minds and went feral, except for Ukkon. Ukkon had also developed the ability to quickly heal to the point of immortality. When Chairman Prescott discovers that Alpha Squad had learned the truth about New Hope and the COG creating the Locust, he attempts to kill them with the Hammer of Dawn. While Alpha were no longer part of the COG, they still believed in killing Ukkon. Major Redburn also revealed that the scientists at New Hope had created a fail-safe called cytostatic gas that could block Ukkon's healing ability, as Major Redburn believes he can make and weaponize it.

After Major Redburn makes the cytostatic gas into gas grenades, the next step was to find Ukkon's base of operations. Sgt. Diaz discovered that the only city not be raided or destroyed was the city of Zenic, believing Ukkon didn't hit it because his base must be located within the city, and he didn't want anything to leave tracks. Upon investigating Zenic, Sgt. Diaz rescued a civilian taken as a prisoner of the Locust. She revealed that she and her father were taking shelter in a nearby laboratory, but Ukkon arrived and transformed it into his own lab. For reasons unknown, he only spared the woman while he killed her father and everyone else. She then agrees to show Alpha the location of the lab, but on the condition that she gets to kill Ukkon. Sgt. Diaz, taken with her, asks for her name, to which she replies is Reyna. After showing where the lab is, all of Alpha's recruits besiege Ukkon's laboratory. Meanwhile, Diaz, Redburn, Mikayla, and Reyna take the fight inside to kill Ukkon. Mikayla uses the cytostatic gas grenade on Ukkon and shoots at him, wounding him and causing Ukkon to unleash his army and his Hydra mount. Alpha Squad eliminates Ukkon's army and the Hydra. Ukkon, now weakened by the gas, is shot in the head by Reyna in revenge for the murder of her father. She then retrieves her amulet from his body and reveals that it belonged to her mother, who she never knew. Now Stranded, Alpha Squad decides to dedicate themselves to destroying Ukkon's remaining creations.

Development

The game's development was handled by Splash Damage with The Coalition providing assistance. The Coalition wanted to introduce the franchise to a wider audience and the development team identified that there were a lot of similarities between the franchise, which was a series of squad-based third-person shooters with cover-based combat, and turn-based strategy games.[6] According to Alex Grimbley, the game's executive producer, "[the team] actually just took existing Gears and just moved the camera up".[7] The team took four and a half years to develop the game.[8] The game is not related to Gears of War: Tactics, a cancelled spin-off developed by Epic Games.[9]

The team wanted the game to play at a faster pace when compared to other competing games in the genre. Thus the team decided to give each unit three action points instead of two to ensure that players can get to perform various actions within one turn.[3] The team put a large emphasis on the game's narrative, and the team aimed to tell a "personal and emotional story" and invested a lot of resources into creating the game's cutscenes and employing the voice actors. The team consulted 343 Industries, which worked on Halo Wars, a strategy spin-off of the Halo franchise. However, unlike Halo Wars, the game was considered to be a PC premium title instead of a strategy game designed for console owners.[3]

Publisher Xbox Game Studios announced the game at E3 2018, alongside Gears 5 and Gears Pop!.[10] At The Game Awards 2019, Microsoft announced that the game would be released for Windows on April 28, 2020, while Rod Fergusson, the founder of The Coalition, later confirmed that an Xbox One version is being developed.[11] Players who pre-ordered the game would gain access to the "Thrashball Cole" pack, which allows the player to play as Augustus Cole.[8] The game was also released for Xbox Game Pass subscribers at launch.[12]

Reception

The game received generally positive reviews upon release, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[13]

gollark: You can store it really densely and whatnot.
gollark: At the other end, you can rebuild all your technology from a portable nanofabricator or something.
gollark: At the low end, you have "bash rocks together" which you just need rocks for (if on a planet).
gollark: I think the graph of "amount of technology needed to retain existing tech level" is an inverted U shape.
gollark: Or trees/plants, which have the convenient feature of automatically generating interest.

References
  1. Williams, Leah (March 28, 2020). "Gears Tactics Is An Authentic, Hybrid Strategy Game". Kotaku. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  2. Yin-Poole, Wesley (March 27, 2020). "Gears Tactics is more Gears of War than you think". Eurogamer. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  3. Sanchez, Miranda (March 28, 2020). "Gears Tactics Preview: Gears of War Meets XCOM and We're Here for It". IGN. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  4. Fenlon, Wes (March 28, 2020). "Gears Tactics is a shockingly good strategy game". PC Gamer. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  5. Gerbick, Jordan (December 13, 2019). "Gears Tactics gets new trailer and April release date, won't have multiplayer or microtransactions". GamesRadar. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  6. Reeves, Ben (March 27, 2020). "Gears Tactics Might Have What It Takes To Compete With XCOM". Game Informer. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  7. Scott=Jones, Richard (April 1, 2020). ""We just moved the camera up" – why Gears Tactics makes so much sense". PCGamesN. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  8. Makuch, Eddie (March 27, 2020). "What You Need To Know About Gears Tactics, The New PC Strategy Game". GameSpot. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  9. Nunneley, Stephany (September 12, 2014). "Purported footage of canned Kinect-based Gears of War strategy title surfaces". VG 247. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
  10. Takahashi, Dean (June 10, 2018). "Microsoft unveils Gears of War 5, Gears Pop, and Gears Tactics". VentureBeat. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  11. Sanchez, Miranda (December 13, 2019). "Gears Tactics Release Date Revealed". IGN. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  12. O'Connor, James (April 7, 2020). "Gears Tactics Has Gone Gold On PC, Will Be Bundled Free With Intel Processors". GameSpot. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  13. "Gears Tactics for PC review". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
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