Memory is a funny thing. According to my brain, the original Gears of War, which released all the way back in 2006, always looked this good. It’s only when you see that original title, running in it’s thirty-frames-per-second, murky Vaseline-smeared 720p glory that you realise that perhaps nostalgia can do strange things to us. Gears of War: Reloaded takes the original title and polishes things up to a mirror-shine, and I got to go hands-on across multiple devices – including the ROG Xbox Ally X.
Back in 2006, Gears of War released on Xbox 360 and if you’re an ol’ grey beard like me, you’ll probably remember it blowing you away. It was the next-gen, must-play exclusive of that early generation, and began a franchise that defined the console and Xbox as a whole.
The game got a moderately pleasant remaster to bring the franchise to PC back in 2015 with Gears of War Ultimate edition, but now 10 years later, the team at developer ‘The Coalition’ have brought all of their technical prowess to bear in order to enhance the game for modern hardware, and for the first time, bring the game to an entirely new platform – PlayStation 5. (Oh, and first time for Steam too!)
So Shiny
Per The Coalition’s Technical Director, Kate Rayner, Gears of War has always been a technical showcase, on every platform it’s ever shipped on, and Gears of War: Reloaded is no different. Compared to the original release, Reloaded is now running at 9x the original resolution, with new 4K textures and native HDR. The originals framerate has been doubled, with the game now running at a locked 60FPS on Xbox Series consoles and PlayStation 5, and 120FPS support for the multiplayer part of the game – and yes, even on Xbox Series S.
Every part of the game has seen some form of improvement it seems. There’s new, augmented lighting, shadows and real-time reflections. On PC, they’ve included native Ultrawide support, AMD Fidelity Effects 3.1, DLSS 3.5 and even a benchmark mode so you can tweak Gears of War: Reloaded to your hearts content. It’s also very well optimised for handheld devices like the now announced ROG Xbox Ally X, but I’ll get into that in a bit. First we should talk about the other platform and the large number of players that get to enjoy Gears of War for the first time.
They’ve taken advantage of all of PlayStation 5’s native features, utilising the Dualsense controller’s adaptive triggers for a different feel depending on what weapon you’re using. Comms chatter and things of that nature use the built-in speaker, and they even light the Dualsense up in red or blue, depending what team you’re on – be it COG or Locust. PS5 Pro support is also included, giving the game an internal resolution increase of 25%, among other visual improvement bumps and PSSR support.
I think when compared to other games from 2006, Gears of War really does hold up. I got to play the opening acts of the game with another gaming journo, and within seconds, I had settled into the usual roadie run, active reload, head-popping habits of yesteryear.
The fluidity and image quality is genuinely impressive when compared to the original, and the only thing that gives the games age away is some of the older animations – outside of that, you could be playing a new release from 2025. It’s still extremely satisfying to nail that perfect active reload, or catch an enemy locust unaware, to then promptly chainsaw them in half. Lovely stuff.
Even the original Gears of War multiplayer is along for the ride. All 19 maps have been remastered to the same level of quality as the campaign. and the original’s peer-to-peer networking has been replaced with dedicated 60hz tick rate servers in all regions – including Mexico. Expect glorious gnasher battles with zero fuss.
I also got to try the game out on the new ROG Xbox Ally X and was super impressed with how the game performed. It ran at a locked 60fps on the 1080p screen, and even seemed to include the real-time reflections and other effects seen when playing on Xbox Series X. The handheld ships with the same impulse triggers we’re used to on Xbox controllers already. Even things like UI and text elements, sometimes hard to read on smaller screens when playing ‘AAA’ games on a handheld were nice and clear, suggesting some form of platform awareness of the title to adjust certain settings. It was very comfortable, and definitely impressed.
It’s Gears, and it holds up
As per usual, Microsoft are hitting the gold standard for how a remaster should be approached. A wealth of great visual and audio improvements, all platforms supported in their specific ways and the entire multiplayer suite gets brought along for the ride? The XboxEra team can’t wait to jump back in to some classic Gears. There’s not too long to wait for a taste, with a Beta coming on June 13th across all platforms.
Gears of War: Reloaded releases August 26th, 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation 5, and Steam – and of course, it’s Day One on Xbox Game Pass.
