Gears of War 4: What We Know

For anyone who played Gears of War 3 it might have seemed like the gears were finally going to stop, but in reality they were just taking a break, and here they churn to life again. Gears of War 4 is coming to us later in the 2016 holiday season, and with the game being produced and designed solely by Microsoft Studios and their Vancouver office dubbed "The Coalition", we are stoked to see what is coming our way. From what we know, which still is not as much as we want to know, players should be prepared to re-attach their chainsaws to their Lancers for some tired and true features, but also be prepared for a lot of new gameplay and graphic features.

It's a Whole New Cast for a Whole New Adventure

The good news is that we have gathered from teasers that Microsoft has been dangling in our face that Marcus Fenix will be in the new game, but he won't be the main attraction. No, instead you play as JD Fenix, the young 25-year-old son of Marcus, while being accompanied by two other friends named Kait and Del. While Marcus had the Locusts to battle, in Gears 4, JD and friends are going to discover a whole new enemy and a whole new level of danger. Also, Microsoft has confirmed that the game will have split-screen co-op options, so you never have to fight alone!

New Guns and New Fighting Styles

Everyone loves a good lancer with a chainsaw for a bayonet, I mean come on who wouldn't want to run around killing aliens in a gory mess of chain oil and blood, but Gears of War 4 is ready to bring some new weapons to the table.

One of the first weapons that caught our attention was the "Buzzkill," which literally shoots out buzzsaw blades as fast as you can keep the trigger pulled down, and if that was not cool enough, the blades ricochet off walls making a small room a Saw movie just waiting to happen for enemies.

The second weapon, which is just as cool as the first by the way, is called the "Dropshot," and it looks like a drill but shoots floating mines that drill into the ground and explode! Supposedly if you get the mine right above an enemy it will drill right down into their skull achieving a pretty gross but awesome victory.

Finally, Gears of War is finally kicking off a melee style of combat with some sick looking knives. That's right folks you can now run and gun, or run and stab stab stabby stab. Either way it is bound to make the campaign gorier and multi-player more exciting.

High Dynamic Range Support (HDR)

Luckily for us Gears of War is one of the few games coming out right now that took advantage of the Xbox One S's small boost in power in order to bring Gears 4 to players in HDR. HDR, in the most simple of terms, allows game makers to really work with the shadowing and highlights of colours in the game, so the lights will be lighter and the darks will be darker. This in total creates a very stunning picture that really lets you experience the details of the artwork.

Can't Forget Multi-Player

In this day and age of gaming the multi-player online mode is just as important to games as the campaign, if not more in some cases, and Microsoft and the Coalition understand this and promise to deliver. Probably the best news for anyone who loves online play is that the online portion of Gears will be run in 60FPS, so you can expect smooth gameplay; as well as the game being run on dedicated servers for more stability. When it comes to gameplay you can expect to have three factions to choose from, all of which have their own style of knife, and all the awesomeness of melee in online fashion.

So there you have it! Just a few of the awesome things that The Coalition are bringing to the table to revamp a new storyline for this beloved franchise. Are you excited? That was rhetorical, we know you are, and we are as well. So look out for Gears of War 4 on October 11th 2016, exclusively for Xbox One and Xbox One S.