TL;DR – Gears of War 5 is an improvement over Gears of War 4, at least as far as the campaign is concerned. In spite of this, it has a few rough edges that hold it back from being a great single player experience. First the positives: The graphics are great (as always), the enemy and weapon variety is great (as always) and there a few new ideas that are actually kind of neat. On the flip-side, the plot is full of nonsense (as always), the squad AI is sometimes utterly useless (as always) and the boss fights are pretty bad. As a consequence I’d say Gears of War 5 has a pretty good campaign for Gears fans, but anyone who doesn’t already like the games should either start elsewhere or avoid it entirely.
Gears of War 5, or to give the game it’s full title, “Gears 5” is one of the rare Xbox One first party games to come out OK. As someone who actually bought an Xbox One console, I can confirm that most of the 1st party games are… just not that good unfortunately. Considering the fact that this is also a console that cost more than it’s main competitor, while having worse multiplatform game performance, it’s not surprising that the “Xbone” struggled to maintain much of a presence in the market. Sure it outsold the Wii U, but that’s really not saying much (and yes I bought one of those too, because I am an idiot). Fortunately for me and my very slow brain, Gears of War 5 is a game I was able to buy for a fitting 5 pounds and was worth the money! Now I’m only going to take a look at the campaign, because my friends won’t play this game and I am not paying a monthly subscription fee to use my own damn internet. As a consequence the campaign is all I have, which is a big factor behind why I waited until this game was cheap as chips.
So luckily for me the campaign is fine, not the best in my humble opinion but better than the campaign in Gears of War 4 and thus a good sign for the series as far as I’m concerned. Especially after that weird Funko-Pop gears game got announced, which frankly wasn’t a great sign. Now one of the main points of contention with the game, aside from it’s female protagonist, is the fact that there are open world sections. For many games this is an inoffensive, albeit somewhat bland way to expand the game’s length by having a bunch of side content available to pad the main missions. When the addition of side missions to Gears of War 5 was announced, I was pretty sceptical because the entire series is so dependent on cover based shooting and thus the way that individual stages are laid out. Therefore I thought, that having big mission areas would lead to either lousy gun-play or involved a ridiculous amount of work on the part of the developers. Fortunately the developers of the game have side stepped this entirely, by having the large areas be entirely free from enemies. You only encounter enemies while on foot and outside of the occasional ambush moment while collecting some small items, you’ll see each combat encounter coming a mile away. What the side missions add, are a way for the game to justify it’s other main addition which takes the form of a robot squad-mate that can deploy some abilities. This robot called Jack is a little floating guy who can reveal enemies, give you a health boost, deploy some traps or a big bulletproof shield, pickup weapons for you and even hijack enemies later in the campaign. As such he’s a pretty useful addition to the squad and the side missions are there to give you content to play, that ultimately exist to justify giving you items that unlock more upgrades for his abilities. The main way this works is that each of Jack’s abilities can be upgraded 3 times using “components” and have an ultimate upgrade that is free* but requires you to deal with the side missions. Components are lying around, much like the game’s collectibles and generally every side mission has a couple that are pretty blatantly presented to you.
Aside from these two ideas, namely the side missions and Jack the robot, Gears of War 5 doesn’t add too much. Which is honestly fine. I mean there are a couple of new enemies and the whole riding around in a vehicle thing is a nice gimmick, but the actual core of the game is much as you’d expect. You are a FUTURE SOLDIER in BIG ARMOUR that waddles around diving into every chest-high wall in sight. While migrating around a ruined world performing your bizarre mating ritual, you will often encounter groups of enemies who are themselves trying to copulate with every chest-high piece of masonry or naturally occurring rock formation in the area. This raw sexual tension and the competition that ensues invariably leads to a violent shoot-out, where the sheer variety of weapons and enemies can be exposed. Fortunately for Gears of War 5, it’s still a fun shooter and the active-reload gimmick is still a good idea all these years later, as are chainsaw bayonets, executions and the ability for both friends and foes to revive their injured comrades. One thing I will say, is that some of these new-ish enemies are frankly tedious to deal with. The shield robots which make whoever their guarding invulnerable just suck to play against. While the pouncers which jump around spraying you with needles are kinda tedious. These are minor niggles though, because the general is still fun. Wandering around with your team, getting head-shots, flanking enemies, managing ammo and so on doesn’t feel fresh but it does feel engaging.
But the campaign isn’t just shooting guys in the face, or at least it isn’t just normal combat encounters. You see the game also has a couple of sections where you’re basically wandering around getting exposition thrown at you. Now I can safely say, that the writing isn’t terrible – it’s just inconsistent. The squad level banter is exceedingly light hearted to the point this almost feels like a buddy game, for want of a better term. Yet the game keeps trying to be serious and gritty at the same time, so you end up bouncing between cheeky banter about how this guy’s a nerd or an asshole and then out of nowhere an “emotional” scene plays. During which our BADASS future soldiers are reduced to panicking rookies or teary eyed kids. It’s really weird, especially because all of the plot is (unsurprisingly) extremely scripted. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say everyone always wins all of the time except during cutscenes. Which is a classic drawback of AAA gaming and honestly reminds me of Borderlands 3, for better or in this case definitely for worse. In spite of this weird tonal back-and-forth the world building is still able to interesting, often in spite of itself and I have to give credit where credit is due. Gears of War 5 knows how to build up a background to an unpleasant regime, while still making the player feel like they are the good guys. It’s also a game that deftly makes use of existing characters, who largely carry the weight of the game. Mainly because JD, Del and Kat are kinda boring and while they occasionally have a good quip they are the “new kids on the block” and aren’t particularly interesting. Even Fahz, the other new-ish character manages to be more interesting – even if he abruptly undergoes a character change from total dick to normal guy while off-screen.
And there really isn’t much else to say, because the campaign really is so similar to the rest. I think the graphics are great and both the snowy areas in Act 2 and the Desert in Act 3 look really good, while the variety of areas across the game is actually pretty impressive. Compared to the earlier games in the series which were basically just urban rubble, abandoned bases and underground caverns the introduction of all this disperate areas is a nice touch. They have some environmental hazards at play, although to be fair these hazards are a bit schlocky for want of a better term. If you’re standing on ice, it might get shot and then you’ll drown like an idiot. Or while driving around, there might be a sand tornado that does damage to you. Either way they are nice touches, but don’t add much to the game overall. Similarly the soundtrack is decent and I even liked the pause/map screen music, which is a weird thing to say but it’s true. Finally there are some collectibles to find, which manage to be both well hidden and yet easy to spot when you are near them. All together it’s a pretty competently made game, which won’t shock anyone but is largely enjoyable. With that being said, there is one last thing I want to get off my chest. Namely that the boss fights are BAD. Seriously there are 3 major boss fights, two with the same boss-type, and none of them are that fun. The Act 3 boss fight is probably the most interesting even if it’s still a bit annoying, while the other two are trash. Seriously it’s mindboggling how much worse they are than the rest of the game, mainly because your squadmates are utterly useless during them. Which means you have to do everything, while dealing with the bosses who just so happen to have a billion health. Oh and you have to do them again from the start should you or one of those useless squad-mates manage to die. They’re less a test of skill and more a weird way to cap-off each chapter, again with the Act 3 boss being alright if a bit repetitive while the other two just screw up my goodwill towards the rest of the game. A game which is fine, it looks good and generally plays well (even if it likes to take away all your equipped guns a bit too often) while having some good writing hidden amidst the frequent tonal backlashes.
In conclusion then, Gears of War 5 is a fun little campaign experience that is basically exactly what you’d expect. It’s a highly linear, highly polished AAA shooting game with some good encounters and a handful of absolutely rubbish ones. It’s filled with returning characters and weapons, while introducing just enough to justify it’s existence. The new additions are largely good, even if they are somewhat par for the course (I mean an upgrade tree and open world areas, could you add anything more 8th console generation?) So it’s a game that I can tepidly recommend, so long as you have played a Gears of War game before. If you haven’t, play one of the earlier ones with a friend in co-op and if you didn’t like the earlier games then ignore my recommendation. Otherwise buckle up, buy this game on sale or 2nd hand and have an alright 11ish hours of action packed nonsense.