Ever since Halo Wars debuted in 2009, it seemed inevitable that Microsoft would take its other big budget military shooter, Gears of War, and make a strategy game within that world. While a standard base building, real-time-strategy game like Halo Wars would likely work for Gears, the core focus of squad based combat makes it a better fit for a squad based tactical strategy title like another 2009 strategy game, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II.
Got ya didn’t I? You thought I was going to say XCOM.
XCOM is a good comparison as well but Dawn of War II seemed ripe for the picking as the character designs of Gears are often compared to Warhammer 40K’s space marines. In both XCOM and Dawn of War II, you tactically control a squad of troops against enemies as you complete mission objectives. And actually Gears Tactics borrows a lot of aspects from both games.
Gears Tactics has a linear campaign with some choice in the type of side missions your team participates in. Similar to XCOM, you’ll add in new Gears to help fill out your squad’s roster and these Gears can level up and be equipped with fancier gear and perks to make them more effective in the field. The difference here is that Gears Tactics has hero units that are central to the narrative and required to be utilized for certain missions. Early on it will just be Gabe Diaz (the father of Kate from Gears 4 and 5) and Sid Redburn. They’ll add some randoms to the squad but over time more hero units will make an appearance. And in many later story missions, I needed at least Gabe, Sid, and Mikayla, leaving only space for one more member (of which I generally used on a Heavy squad member with a mulcher).
The side missions are where the squad variety can be played with a bit more but it also means you are playing side missions. These generally show up in a handful of different types, demolition missions where you are infiltrating an enemy base and blowing up their stuff, rescue missions where you are going into a field with maybe one other squad member to rescue two additional soldiers from enemies, and supply missions which can be either see you controlling points or quick rushes across a map (with aerial bombardment always pushing you forward). These are all fine but they also just feel like they are padding for the story.
It took me 20 hours to complete the campaign, which is a chunky campaign but at least a third of that time is spent on those “fine” side missions. I’d have preferred that time be filled in with more scripted missions because those are generally excellent. The campaign has three acts and each core story mission (aside from the tutorial missions introducing the different types of side missions) are well done and unique. And each act culminates with a pretty cool boss fight. OK, well, two of the three acts culminate with a pretty cool boss fight. The final boss fight is an anger inducing experience that I’m sure my controller was happy I finished as I kept squeezing and torquing it in frustration.
Gameplay is what you’ve come to expect from the tactical strategy genre post X-COM. Hit percentages, cover based combat, explosive radiuses, action points, overwatch, and special abilities. It’s all there, including having a 90% chance of hitting someone and then missing (although I will say, it does seem to be a bit more fair in that capacity). The game, like all Gears games, has a variety of difficulty levels so you pick your challenge level and go from there.
And yes as I mentioned a paragraph ago, I played on a controller and on the Series X. When Gears Tactics launched earlier this year on PC, I played a healthy chunk over there and ultimately stopped somewhere in the third act because my PC just couldn’t run it very well and it kept crashing. My PC is old and while on paper, stronger than the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, it’s dated and can’t run brand new games very well. Gears Tactics at times looked like a PS2 game on my PC. On the Series X and my 4K television, it looks fantastic. There are things you can pick nits at about it, alot of the environments look similar (especially in the side missions) for instance, but when it’s in action, the game looks amazing and it plays perfectly.
As a long time fan of the Gears of War franchise, Gears Tactics is an excellent entry into the series. It’s narrative is fun and engaging and lends some perspective to the current Gears timeline by looking back on its history. If there was one thing I wish the game had though, it is a Horde mode. I think a tactical wave based game mode would have been something that would keep me coming back over and over (like actual Horde in Gears does). But that’s just a wish, the whole game is pretty great even without it, it’s just something I won’t return to as often without it.
4*
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