Gears Of War Reloaded | REVIEW | PS5

''THE GEARS ARE TURNING AGAIN''

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Developed: The Coalition

Published: XBOX Game Studios

Genre: Action/FPS

Release Date: August 26th, 2025

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, Gamepass, PS5

*Game provided to me by XBOX Game Studios

Gears Of War Reloaded marks a return of a classic game from the 360 era and it is developed by The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios. With this generation seemingly being the generation of remakes and revisits, the team at Coalition decided its time to bring back one of XBOX's greatest hits, that being Gears Of War. But was it the right time and place to bring a title of this stature back? or should they have just waited for the prequel to release first? Only one way to find out, so lets go!

''THE BOYS HAVE ARRIVED''

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GAMEPLAY:

Oh man, to be back in the olden days of the XBOX 360, which is in my opinion the last great generation of the XBOX platform. Granted that might be a hot take, but for me personally, as 360 being my most played platform of that generation over the Wii and even PS3, the console had it all. It had great FPS titles, quirky platformers like Kameo, detective style horror like Condemned Criminal Origins, advancement of chat and online play, Arcade system that was ahead of its time, high quality RPG releases with one of the best of the generation being Lost Odyssey... it was just such a great console overall and that's not even mentioning Halo and of course Gears Of War. But now flash forward in 2025 and we see a return of that 360 nostalgia magic as Gears Of War is back once more, but now... on Playstation 5? what the heck? what kind of dark evil magic is this?. Truth be told, this isn't THAT surprising given the current state of the market with Playstation and XBOX struggling on the first party output and needing to bring in more revenue that third parties might necessarily bring by themselves to their platforms, so the next bet? pull a SEGA and go third party... well sorta. While not quite at SEGA's level of abandoning hardware to focus on publishing games on rival platforms, they're getting one foot in the door by now publishing select titles on their rivals platforms, while still trying to maintain their own console in the now pretty much dead, console wars. But console wars aside, we are now treated to bringing back the fight against the Locust once more, but now looking shinier and more polished here with Reloaded. Re-imagining this game to me on paper seems kind of hard, mostly due to the 360 era having the label of ''the brown era'' due to every single major game putting a weird green and yellow tint on everything, making it look like hollywood's equivalent of when someone enters Mexico in one of their TV shows or movies. But somehow, while its not 100% perfect with its graphic fidelity, Reloaded does polish the graphics just enough to make it look A LOT better than it used to and moves it closer to the quality you'd expect from a modern AAA title in general.

Alongside brand new uptick in graphics and better framerate, Reloaded, also includes the Ultimate Edition of the title, previously released in 2015 and all of its prior DLC to boot as well, which is awesome. Its not as cool as Bethesda giving us horse armor, but hey, who can compete with Shadowmere? not very many, but an extra campaign act is still a very good runner up at the end of the day either way. If you were a fan of the original campaign, much like I was, then you will be pleasantly surprised to know that everything you know and loved about it returns here in Reloaded and keeps everything that as fun about the game such as fighting in alleys infested by Kryll, building terror and tension, bad ass action sequences, perfecting the cover system, chopping people in two with a chainsaw, you get it, and if you remember it and loved it, then its here to be enjoyed once again, this time with higher fidelity and smoother controls and mechanics. The difficulty remains as tough a rigid as ever as well with times of frustration getting to you because you died against an enemy horde or missed timed a melee, then magically blame it on ''THE GAMES FAULT'' because, its definitely not our fault, right? NO WAY. The entire time playing it however I still felt weird about it, like again, Gears on Playstation? really?. I mean we've had Forza come to Playstation and Final Fantasy, Blade and LEGO Horizons come on over to opposing platforms, but Gears just seems so weird to me.. but then again, Sony is starving for some high quality shooters since a new Killzone or Resistance is never happening again, real talk. Its just crazy to think about in todays landscape because what's next? KNACK on Switch 2?. Hang on... wait a minute, I'd actually like that... come on Sony, MAKE IT HAPPEN. Back on topic, the multiplayer also remains intact, whether you want to co-op with a buddy and mow down locusts together like its nobodies business or if you want to do a bit more of a PvP, you are covered as competitive play is still as hectic as ever and if you're a long time player of the series since the start, then have fun, because a lot of these people playing for the first time in their lives are easy cattle and have no clue how to play Gears properly, so that means... MEATS BACK ON THE MENU BOYS, so its your time to embarrass the competition. As stated before, with this remaster of Gears Of War, thanks to the efforts by the studio, you also now get up to 120 fps on PC, with its console counterpart on PS5 providing you with 4K 60fps with HDR, so its also definitely nothing to scoff at. Being able to mow down locusts, slice and dice, run through narrow corridors and dodging and sliding your way out of trouble, all in an intense 12-15 hour campaign, with dozens of hours more to play online, its just so dang fun, and gives you that classic feeling of being back on the 360, even if its on PS5.

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''OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR!''

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OVERALL:

At the end of the day, Gears Of War Reloaded remains a really fun time for me, although it does have some problems with not all grey and brown areas being able to be fixed or upscaled enough for ALL areas to look as good as some and some of the AI for your teammates being dumber than you remembered them being...although still not as terrible as hearing ''LEON! HELP!'' 500 times over and over like in Resident Evil 4 - still it can be quite annoying. But with those annoyances aside, with the overall plus to the game itself for its intense campaign, frantic multiplayer and fun co-op, comms now coming through your DualSense, vibration of sawing enemies in half and 12 to 15 hour campaign that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time, makes this game a blast to revisit, and while it may not be the 100% true XBOX 360 experience of old, its as close as you can get. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says BUY NOW... or just play it on Gamepass!

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