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Nearly two decades after Gears of War helped popularize cover-based shooting on the Xbox 360, the game is now on its second remaster, this time developed by The Coalition and sporting the fancy new title: Gears of War: Reloaded.
This outing’s many improvements retroactively make the previous remaster, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, seem like anything but an ultimate version of the first chapter in this decades-spanning series.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
Release date: August 26, 2025
Gears of War: Reloaded dramatically upgrades the beloved shooter’s visuals and performance for a present-day audience. It comes packing 4K assets and remastered textures, HDR support, new lighting and shadows, 60 fps in campaign and up to 120 fps in multiplayer, and more. While it’s impossible to fully obscure the game’s age, these improvements do a great job at bringing it reasonably close to current-gen expectations.
Additionally, for the very first time, PlayStation fans can download and play a Gears of War game on PS5. We live in wild times, and I’m happy to be along for the ride.
But underneath the fresh coat of paint and the hype of the series joining a new ecosystem, this is still the Gears of War that players fell in love with years ago and whether that makes it worth your time and money is likely to depend entirely on your previous experiences (or lack thereof) with the game.
Gorgeous familiarity
The original Gears of War landed before I was even old enough to drink or rent a car, and I’ve beaten its campaign at least five times between getting married, buying a house, raising a kid, and becoming old enough to grunt when I get off the couch. It should be old news to me by now, but there’s a timelessness to its campaign that made it easy for me to dive back in with Gears of War: Reloaded without feeling like it’s a chore.
It’s exactly the same game as it’s always been, too. As a grizzled COG soldier named Marcus Fenix, you spend six to eight hours shooting and chainsawing through mutated humanoids called Locusts as you work to find and plant a bomb capable of destroying their subterranean lair. It’s loud, gory, and incredibly satisfying third-person chaos that has aged shockingly well.
It may look and sound like little more than a hyper-violent ‘bro’ game at a glance, but the series as a whole is known for its surprising character work, exploring Marcus and his team’s struggles with family, sacrifice, and the never-ending toll of war. And while subsequent games admittedly capitalized a bit more on the overarching lore and individual characters’ backstories, this introductory entry remains a meaningful foundation for them to build upon.
Best bit
An early showdown against a nearly invulnerable enemy forces you to carefully bait its charging attack to break doors down as you lure it through a building. Once you get it outside, you can finally blast it with an all-powerful laser from the sky. It’s a tense game of cat and mouse that switches things up to great effect.
Despite being the same old Gears of War, though, one particularly noticeable update is the all-new lack of loading screens. Sure, it’s not exactly surprising that a nearly 20-year-old game can pull that off in the same era as God of War Ragnarok‘s seamless no-cut camera work, but it’s a quality-of-life feature that makes the campaign all the more efficient and enjoyable for both newcomers and veterans alike.
But speaking of the game being almost two decades old, it’s important to remember that even with significant visual and performance updates, there’s no hiding the Xbox 360’s footprint in Gears of War: Reloaded.
The gray and brown aesthetic that defined many seventh-generation action titles can’t be erased with snazzy 4K assets and lighting improvements, and some stiff animations give away the game’s age pretty clearly.
There’s only so much that can be done without completely remaking a game from the ground up, so I’d argue The Coalition has done a commendable job of getting things close to modern standards while maintaining the integrity of the original experience.
Here come the shotguns
While the servers weren’t turned on during the review period, I spent enough time with the beta back in June to know that Gears of War: Reloaded‘s multiplayer, though much prettier and smoother, largely plays the same as it did in 2006. As always, it’s a polarizing mode best summed up with the question, “Do you like shotguns?”
Most matches in any Gears of War game, including this one, come down to players repeatedly cancelling slide-to-cover animations to rapidly bounce from wall to wall (which is unsurprisingly called “wall-bouncing”) while wielding the Gnasher shotgun. They move in on one another and engage in frenetic hip-fire shootouts to see who explodes into a million pieces first.
While not technically an exploit, wall-bouncing can seem like an abuse of game mechanics to newbies who expect the multiplayer to flow the same way as the campaign. You can find an occasional long-range showdown if you hang back and play defensively, but veteran players who bounce around like the ball in a pinball machine will usually still close the gap and pop you with a single Gnasher shot. This focus on point-blank gunplay isn’t inherently bad, of course, but it can make matches feel one-dimensional.
Still, existing Gears of War enthusiasts and new players willing to adapt to the unique playstyle the community espouses will be happy to know that Gears of War: Reloaded is certainly the most complete version of the first game’s multiplayer.
It includes all of the post-launch DLC, 60Hz dedicated servers, up to 120 fps (if your TV or monitor supports it), and cross-play support for every platform. And that last point is especially important, as this game reaches an audience it never has before: PlayStation owners.
A new platform for carnage
In a way, all of the visual and performance updates Gears of War: Reloaded brings to the table feel second to the real story here, which is that its release marks the first time the franchise has been available on a PlayStation console.
Seeing the title screen of one of Microsoft’s biggest exclusive IPs boot up on my PS5 felt bizarre at first, but as with Forza Horizon 5 earlier this year, it didn’t take long for the dust to settle.
Before I knew it, all the running, gunning, and sliding into cover with a DualSense controller felt just as natural as it always has with an Xbox controller. It was a great reminder that, while exclusives can be an important part of a console’s identity, the most important thing is that a fun game is a fun game anywhere.
As you might expect, the DualSense adds some extra flair for those who enjoy its unique features. All of the immersion is in full force here, like how the vibrations differ between firing a weapon or using your chainsaw to grind through a Locust, or the way the adaptive triggers have a specific feel for each gun. Still, if you normally prefer a different platform, I wouldn’t consider these DualSense features worth prioritizing the PS5 version.
The important part is that, wherever you decide to play Gears of War: Reloaded, it’s the best version of the game available. Whether you’re fresh meat or a franchise devotee, this remaster’s facelift makes for a great opportunity to join Marcus Fenix and his loyal band of brothers on their first perilous adventure, or see if you’ve got what it takes to duke it out in some anarchistic multiplayer matches.
Should I play Gears of War: Reloaded?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility features
Gears of War: Reloaded won’t be winning any awards for its accessibility options, but it has the basic suite of features like subtitles and text-to-speech.
You can make it so that button tap challenges allow you to simply hold down the button rather than rapidly press it, while photosensitive players will appreciate the flash reduction setting that limits sudden brightness changes.
How I reviewed Gears of War: Reloaded
I played Gears of War: Reloaded on a PS5 Pro using a Sony X90K LED TV. I swapped between my Sony Pulse Elite Wireless Headset and Alienware Pro Wireless Headset for audio.
I played Gears of War: Reloaded for around 6 hours, during which time I worked my way through the full campaign on Normal difficulty while finding all 33 of the COG tag collectibles.
I wasn’t able to play any multiplayer since the servers weren’t on during the review period, but I got a good feel for it when I spent a few afternoons playing online during the beta back in June.
First reviewed August 2025
