In a sea of incredibly interesting, surprising, and in some cases mind boggling announcements, I'm not surprised Gears 4 has been somewhat lost in the shuffle. To the untrained eye it basically looks like more Gears... and... well, even to those familiar with these games it looks awfully akin to what these games are known for. That's not to say what they've shown thus far is a carbon copy of Gears past. The atmosphere looks like it's trying to recapture the somewhat horror-orientated aesthetic of the original Gears, the enemies they encountered were much more animalistic than the gung-ho Locust (though I'm sure Gears 4 will still feature Locust surrogates, AKA bullet-sponges with guns), but what's perhaps most striking is that the cast of playable characters looks to have been reduced to two.

That may not be the case for the entire game, or perhaps there'll be a separate campaign that continues the same four player freedom, but they're at the least selling their game with the idea that we're back to square... two. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though! Whereas for games such as this it often falls to the rule that 'the more players the better', I can understand that for the sake of what may include some slower goings on, they'd want to brings things down a notch, or two, without sacrificing the cooperative element that is so key to these games. There's also the idea to consider that with us back to having two protagonists now, this'll allow them to bring back the intimacy of Gears 1 & 2. Even for all of their cheesy writing and hole-stricken plots, the relationship between Marcus & Dom was factored enough for it to slowly grow to mean something. They're not especially great characters in themselves, but their relationship and camaraderie felt believable enough for me to grow an attachment, not necessarily to the individual characters, but their relationship. Gears 3 with its constant switch-up of characters served its purpose for the sake of the story, and also from a gameplay standpoint as well most certainly, but it also lacked the first two's sense of companionship. Sure, you're travelling with other characters beyond Marcus & Dom in both of the first two Gears games, but there's plenty of time where it's just the two of 'em back-to-back, with nobody else to lean on but the other.

Even if nobody's going to hold up Gears 3 as one of gaming's greatest tales, it at least proved that they're improving, with each Gears game featuring higher quality writing and storytelling from the last. Well, er, that is except that otherGears game. So, the idea that they theoretically take what has been learnt from previous games and then administer that to the series' classic two-man show (or rather one man, one woman show!) gives me hope.

Though that the main dude currently looks to be the poster-boy for Generic 30s Something Action Mens everywhere is somewhat disheartening. But Laura Bailey, though! That's at least something, as she fits the tough-as-nails soldier lady rather well (as already proven in that RAAM DLC for Gears 3; also, unrelated, but funny to consider that she actually fell to the trope of 'tough latino soldier lady biting it'...), much more so than her anime/JRPG stuff, to which even she can't seem to escape from sounding like a squealing sack of cats and is generally just as annoying. If it's one thing the Gears games has always done well by weirdly enough it's the voice acting, with their all-star voice casts bringing the goods, and hopefully Gears 4 will stick to such a hallmark of quality.

I do hope that the duo won't inevitably lead to some sort of actual romance, however. Not only is it simply a tougher relationship to execute, but there's really just so few character dynamics out there in media in general between a man and a woman that doesn't inevitably end in each puppydog eyeing the other. That's not to say they shouldn't hint at a romantic relationship, as such a thing seems natural within the circumstances of withstanding such harrowing combat experiences, but hopefully it won't be at the forefront. The blossoming love between Marcus & Anya I actually rather liked because of how far back it was hidden in the shadows; and the resulting scene that shows Anya resting on a solum Marcus, looking like a very sad giant, was to me made all the more heartwarming. It reflected on the fact that the war was over, that they finally had the chance to (literally) peel off their armour and potentially consider a relationship. Yes Otacon, love can bloom on a battlefield, but you're also on (what may be a literal) bloody battlefield for christ sake! So, yanno, keep the lovey dovey stuff at home and focus on what's in front of you in the here and now, which in a Gears game's case is undoubtedly going to be stuff to shoot in the face.

Also, Horde mode will assuredly provide all of the cooperative small squadron gameplay happenings.

So... I didn't actually plan for this to go on so long, but there you have it. Hell, it might as well function as a blog, as I can also thattaway create a title more than 60 CHARACTERS FFS GIANT BOMB WHY HAST THIS NOT BEEN SEEN TO STILL GOD FAKKIN DAMNIT.

TL;DR; I AM IN FAVOUR OF IT BUT HOWS ABOUT YA'LL?????

The feeling I have about this change is the same feeling I have about the totality of Gears 4's very existence:

A chronic, overwhelming, ubiquitous apathy.

I can't wait for the future press conference where they get to say, "...and in Gears 5, we'll be bringing back 4 player coop! *pause for audience clapping* You asked for it, and we heard the call loud and clear."

2 player co-op has its own flavor and its own expectations that you don't see in 4 player co-op games. When it gets to 4 players, everything is designed for everyone to do and it just becomes Be Good At Game rather than Work As A Team. Especially if there are no defined roles and every player is basically the same toon.

I personally preferred the two player co op as that is what I played those games most with. 4 was super cool but if we had 4 people we played horde mode, if there were only 2 we jumped into the campaign.

Awesome.

Has there actually been a sort of backlash against it lowering its coop player count?

Y'know, I never even considered that actually, that's a really good point! Especially with how each character is indeed literally the exact same as one another, with the same access and proficiency to every weapon. Despite her more realistic physique, Anya can lift and waddle about with the minigun/mortar/ect. just as well as Macho Man Marcus! It's too bad they never actually implemented Judgment's character classes from its MP modes into its campaign, and also Horde mode. And that it also had a horde mode. And locust skins, and more maps, more character skins, and...

Then again perhaps each of the two characters will have their own strengths and weaknesses, it's all still very early! I've heard that the two-player coop dynamic is supposed to be handled pretty well in those Army of Two games, what with their aggro system and all, though I never got around to trying any of 'em myself.

Heh, I also primarily played two-player in Gears 3 as well, though a large part of that is down to having very few gaming buddies. Though I did enjoy playing with randoms, which often resulted in a full squad of four, in its Arcade mode. Man, I really hope Gears 4 will carry that over; adding a scoring feature is such a simple yet effective way to inspire replay value, and the Gears games are such that I'm always up for reasons to play 'em again!

I wouldn't assume it only has two player co-op. As you mention, it could just be this level, or maybe nothing we saw at E3 is actually in the game. It would be a dumb move to do that, simply because I don't like the idea of choices/features being taken away. If someone likes two player co-op then just go ahead and do two players... it's not like the choices were solo or with 3 friends only. From what I remember, it was 1 to 4 players, so someone personally preferring two players doesn't matter; 4 player co-op doesn't necessarily stop two player co-op.

@deathstriker: It can change things related to the story and character interactions, though, such as again creating a slightly more intimate identity. Two's company, three's a crowd, so four's basically a gathering of the juggalos! Not that story and characters are what people generally come to Gears for (though I have no shame in admitting that I've always enjoyed the personality of Gears), but then you also have to account for level design, too. Four is literally double two, and I don't say that to sound like a patronising tit but to emphasis that environments would thusly have to be made to be bigger. If they are aiming to inject a little horror into this one, then they'd do well by introducing environments that might be a little more claustrophobic. In fact one neat idea I've had rattling in my brain is having two players moving through a corridor, only there's enemies attacking from both sides, requiring each player to literally be back-to-back in holding off the horde, while also still trying to actually get through the corridor.

It seems like a fine move, I can rarely pin down more than 1 friend at a time anyway. It's all academic to me though, I have no intention of picking up an Xbox One for the foreseeable. I liked the original trilogy though, one of the best bro-ops of last gen.

I think the game industry as a whole needs to take notice of the fact that the new 'team' size is actually 5. It was only four because that was the ideal number of controllers available for couch coop games. MOBAs (and MMOs) have effectively increased this number to 5. Try to ignore that fact all you want. Gears 3 was the weirdest example because Horde was 5 players... so there was one friend who just got screwed out of playing the campaign with the rest of us.

Indubitably! Some of the most fun I've ever had is playing the Gears trilogy in split-screen with my little brother; beating the first on Insanity in a single run made for some happy memories.

The weirdest numbering is Uncharted for how their coop stuff limited you to three players... Three? What? Though I don't think there's any be all end all number of players, it should purely depend on the game, and five players sounds like a bit much for a story-driven campaign shooter. Even Halo 5 will only allow up to four players right? Five and beyond sounds more fitting for competitive scenes as opposed to pure cooperation. Though saying I did greatly enjoy my time playing the eight-player coop stuff in Resistance 2, but even then the missions were pretty short and self-contained.

yaay even apathy comes in extremes nowadays.

No, not that I've seen. To clarify, what I'm referring to is the developer habit of bringing back something after taking it away, and then celebrating it as a "big win" for the players.

As far as the actual topic of the thread, there's obviously a different dynamic to different player count. I think the majority (all?) of my time with Gears coop has been 2 player, so it's a familiar format to me.

Man, I totally forgot about the disposable Cog lady in the Raam DLC, and it wasn't that long ago we went through it.

As I was mentioning to you the other day. I really do think it's just to build a new Dom/Marcus-like relationship with its leads, or maybe the game is very early and they have every intention of upping the player count.

I'm glad about the banter in the video. I was worried we'd get another Judgment. I wonder if we'll ever see Sophia or Paduk again? People talk a lot of shit about the brofest characters in Gears, but they're full of personality, and I really hope they stick with that in the new one.

For me, more isn't always better. A buddy and I always play through the campaign co-op and I greatly prefer the 2 player because it feels more tactical. I would usually hang back and rock the longshot while he mixes it up in close. You kind lose that with 4 players. Are people making a big deal about this?

I'm personally okay with it, I did have a lot of fun playing 4-player co-op in Gears 3 though. I have a buddy who has similar interests to me game wise and we play a ton of co-op stuff together so I know I'll have a ton of fun playing through the campaign with him. I have quite a few gaming buddies who went from 360 to PS4 so I don't exactly have the cabal of people ready to throw down at anytime to play games like the heady early days of the 360, I went with the One so I'm a bit of an odd man out. Only have a couple of friends who went with the One so a lower campaign player count will suit me fine. I liked the relationship that Marcus and Dom built from the first game to the third one and I hope something similar happens here.

I played all the Gears single player and also Co-op with a friend, so 2 players is pretty much the experience i've had with the series the entire time.

For me as long as there is co-op (two players or four players) I really don't care. I loved the co-op of all the games but I almost never played co-op with more than 1 person.

I will say there are a lot of assumptions being made about it only being two players and that this is just a trailer demonstrating the look and feel of the game they are going for. I'll take the wait and see approach but if they do lower the campaign co-op count down to two I won't be saddened one bit.

Can it be 2016 yet? I need this, Uncharted, and Mass Effect in my life.

I think Sofia's dead? I seem to recall some haphazard plot point in the Judgment campaign set during Gears 3 where Paduk implies she was raped and killed or something. Either way it's no big loss as she was a pretty boring character. Paduk, however, I'd certainly like to see again in some form; he was a likeable enough grouchy space Russian and the only character in Judgment to evoke some modicum of personality.

Oh God yes, I always enjoyed taking up Longshot duty. Bolt-action sniper rifles always tend to make for the most satisfying weapons for their typically high effeciency for headshots. Plus the 'ching' sound effect for loading each bullets usually sounds pretty cool, especially in RE4/RE5 and The Evil Within.

Oh, I should add you one day on XB1 when I welcome it to my collection sometime this year! Likely be around August in anticipation for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

While it's certainly super early, I still feel that they're clearly trying to establish the mood and tone they aim to portray, and showing off two characters roadie running around instead of four seems pretty intentional. I think there's more chance that there'll simply may be an alternate campaign for four players, as having certain chapters with two only to then lead into another with four could be a little jarring, especially if it reverts back to two again whilst you've got a squad of four.

2 player campaign is always how I prefer to co-op. 4 player, or 5 is for horde mode and mp. If this is indeed the case I won't care.

Great, now I'm craving some Gears.

@pweidman: Luckily Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is actually not too far off! 25th August I'm to believe.

@yummylee: A whole squad of grouchy space Russians.

I never played these games in co-op... so i'm indifferent really.

I generally prefer playing co-op games with just one more player. More than that and it can often get a bit out of control (not a bad thing mind) I just like to have it a bit more chill sometimes. I already spend so much time in calls with big groups of people with competitive games.

@yummylee

Yeah I know, and I'm looking forward to that. I do have the beta almost downloaded now so that'll have to do I guess :-)

It's not for preview yet unfortunately.

Or go and play each one on my 360? omg the horror, lol.

The gameplay showing reminded me A LOT of the Lamnent infested factory from the first game, which was visually stunning, but also by far the shittiest part of the game. They'll need to change up the formular on a fundamental level if they want to make that sort of gameplay the focus, which I guess could be super exiting? Or fall flat on its face. No matter what, the gameplay demo was solid, I kinda think its hilarious how a lot of people always decry demos that are to focused on action, then when a usually action focused game takes a chance and shows of a demo focused on atmosphere, they hate it. Guess you can't win either way.

Scratch one grub, comrade. Notting but bits, da. And ect.

Really? Huh. For as much as I love these games I do think that they can get to be a little boring on their own.

Weirdly enough I'd say playing in four player makes for a more lax environment. As @brodehouse mentioned above, when you're playing coop in two-player then the game is typically designed to demand both players stay fully aware of what's happening around them and to work closely together. Whereas in four-player you're given room to just play the game as you see fit, least in Gears 3's case, since the game doesn't actually scale depending on how many characters are controlled by players.

I've spent many a five-player Horde match letting my instincts play the game for me whilst I'll be talking about something completely unrelated to the game.

You should actually be able to play 'em all on your XB1, even the original funnily enough, via the upcoming backwards compatibility.

I think this just proves that 'horror' doesn't tend to show well at conferences for most audiences. It is unfortunate that despite actually featuring very little combat during the demo, which in itself is indeed pretty ballsy, the reception from most seems to be one of boredom.

Also, yes, the factory is precisely what came to mind for me, too. Though I personally loved that section.

@yummylee: It's less about the focus the game takes, because I actually find razor sharp focus a lot more relaxing than something less demanding that might bore me. It's just that big group conversations can get louder and more chaotic, I relax better with a simple 1 on 1.

Going by the responses in this thread at least most people generally played Gears 3 two-player. It makes me wonder how widespread this mentality was, and whether or not that in itself may have also dictated why they decided to reduce the number of playable campaign characters down.

@yummylee: You got me thinking more on this. It's like there's a sliding scale of communication, where games that require communication are that much better with friends but so much worse doing online matchmaking, and games where communication is secondary to Just Playing are superior online but less special with friends.

Yes, absolutely. I'm always willing to matchmake with randoms for games that, say, allow up to four players because you'll hopefully be able to get a full squad and there's less reliance on a single fellow player. Borderlands 2 + Pre-Sequel is a recent example of where I've felt comfortable in casually playing with randoms, though loot hoarding can be rather treacherous on the account that we all share the same drops... Crazy to think they never made it so each player would see their own loot drops unique to themselves ala Diablo III. Hell, even LOTR: War in The North had such a feature.

Yet on the flip side it can make cooperative experiences get to be a little dull in the long run; my time playing coop in Diablo III with a mate wasn't especially memorable for example. Sometimes anywhoo. Sometimes such games are perfect for communication because of the relatively lax environment allows you to more easily talk about whatever, just depends on the person you're playing with I suppose. But then of course memories of actually playing the game still tend to come secondary to the off-topic conversations. It's as you said really, that games designed for two-player do actually--from my experience--make for the memorable cooperative funtimes.

Apart from the concept of an underground race of really ugly monsters, the story and lore of the gears games never really appealed to me. When I reached the end of Gears 3 it felt like there was so much that just was never developed enough or maybe I stopped paying attention to what they were showing me. Why was the queen human looking again? Anyway, if they can tell a more coherent story this time I'll be happy.

It's just a number. It has nothing to do with how well-made and enjoyable the experience will be.

You mean to tell me that, say, if RE5 was designed around 4-player coop instead of two it would have been the exact same game? Then there's also examples like that giant fish monster thing from Gears 2 where Marcus & Dom are on a wooden raft. Had that instead featured four players the raft would either have to be made bigger, thereby eliminating part of the tension, or it'd be a total clusterfuck of players rolling into one another.

Yes, definitely. Even though Gears 3 looked like it was trying to tell a story that didn't exist purely for headshot heaven, parts of it still managed to come across as rushed and undeveloped. The whole segment with Adam Fenix was as if it was played on fast-forward. Though as for the Queen thing, there's a file you can locate that implies she was a scientist that got lost when exploring the planet or... something. So there's reason to believe she was in fact human at one point, though how she then ended up as a queen of a race of stone-faced monsters is a step they forget to fill in.

It would have been interesting if they also tried to expand upon the locust as something other than just mindless monsters, especially with regards to how they were there first; the COG are the invading aliens after all. With the lambent infection taking over everything, you'd think that would then lead into a sort of ''lesser of two evils'' situation that forces the locust and cogs to team up to take down a common foe. Super predictable, but it still would have made for some interesting dynamics at least as they try to work together -- X-Men + Brotherhood style. Plus that way they could then provide a playable story locust character to cash in on the classic ''Squad includes one of the enemy'', like how you have a Geth squadmate in Mass Effect 2 and a Helghast guy in the original Killzone.

Then you could also have this hypothetical locust squadmate act all ''fish out of water'' and serve for a bit of deadpan humour, and then must ultimately have to question its loyalties once the lambent have been beaten back and the friction between the locust & COG returns to the surface and blast it all it would have awesome.

Have you been hanging out with Alex, because this sounds like him. :)

He told me to say it.

If the campaign is more designed to be story focused or to have more scripted moments reducing the coop player count would help to keep the player focus on that design.

From what little they showed this really seems like just another Gears game, which is probably why this is ignored. As the actual release date approaches, and probably more at next year's E3, we'll hear more and more about Gears 4. Hopefully they change up the typical Gears formula and try something different.

Sorry, I wrote that on my phone so I was a bit brief.

It is not my position that you can take the same game, change the number of players and have quality be the same. My perspective is actually the exact opposite. I do not anticipate a game designed specifically for two players to be any less fun than a game designed specifically for four players, excepting the notion that socializing with more people may be considered more enjoyable. I think that as long as development decisions take into consideration the decided upon number of players, there's no reason it can't be equal in quality to any other game.

It reminded me of people complaining about Star Wars: Battlefront not having as many players as Battlefield games have had, when this is pretty irrelevant to the quality of the actual experience of playing the game. (A tangentially relevant aside: Rush mode was ruined in Battlefield 4 when they decided to up the player count from 24 to 32 on consoles.) I know you're coming at this from more of a narrative angle, but the principle is the same to me.

@spoonman671: Ah, OK, I misunderstood.

I'm the only one out of my friend group with a One so there will never be 4 controllers to use anyways. 2 is a can do.

I think it's funny that they say it's going back to it's "horror" roots. Who ever thought those games were scary at all? I guess there was that mansion bit in the first game, but come on, horror? They just needed something to fill the silence that sounded better than it's Gears, but not that one bad Gears. It's like those 3 good Gears; you know, the scarier ones.

@sonny6killer: The original Gears totally had elements of horror to it, specifically the factory segment as mentioned above with all of the rain and your first introduction to the lambent. The sections set during the part with all of the krill count, too. Also, horror doesn't always have to equal scary to still be horror.

@yummylee: what elements make up horror? I'm not that big into horror anything, so aside from the basic tropes I guess it would be lost on me. I also remember very little of that game, but suspect the horror parts they were referring to where the few levels surrounding the razor rain scenario.

I don't mind the reduction. It felt like the Gears games were progressively trying to outdo the last one on a grander scale so it's nice to see things go in a different direction by pulling things back.

Honestly though I don't really care that much about this game, specifically the single player. As someone who loves the fuck out of Gears multiplayer I just want to hear details on what the multi will be like for this. Single player isn't grabbing me and the game being called Gears 4 seems silly. This game should be its own thing

Okay, so I didn't read half of the snark-fest online about this game. Here's the deal:

The four player multiplayer made the Gears 3 campaign worse than the other two. If you could manage to actually find three other people to play with, it was okay- but still felt like some of those areas were just stretched out. Playing alone, however: Gears 3 never managed to have a reasonable difficulty curve when playing alone. You either wouldn't die at all, since your guys would always bring you back- or you would die all the freaking time on insane because it wasn't balanced at all, they just took the down but not out business out.

I felt like the bosses in earlier Gears games were pretty good.. here they were basically impossible on your own on insane difficulty level. On the other levels you were just downed a lot, but could slog through all the shit thrown at you.

The razer rain thing was actually in Gears 2! Anywhoo I see horror as something that is explicitly slow-paced and that tries to at the very least create a sense of unease; atmosphere plays a key part in it, usually by setting everything in a very moody, typically dark lighting. Enough so you may not be able to quite see what it is you're, for example, aiming your gun at; enough so that you're to likely choose to walk rather than roadie-running your way through everything. The segment set in the factory has a lot of moments where the lambent wretches will scurry from a distance; just as you get a glimpse of them they're already gone, leaving you to wonder what it was you were looking at amidst the rain. And even if it isn't necessarily scary, horror can still be used to shock, and at times simply provide ridiculous imagery like OTT gore and such. Like, barely anybody will claim a game like RE4 is scary, but it's still absolutely a horror game for the sake of its recurring imagery of really fucked up business, alongside enemies that are human enough but at the same time completely alien.

After actually getting in deep into Judgment's MP, I too am excited to hear more on that front. Though I won't lie, the story and whatever other coop stuff they have planned is priority No.1 for me. And I like the Gears 4 name, although it's apparently still technically called Gears of War 4. Gears 4 is better because it implies that the war itself is over, so what you're instead left with is something that isn't of the scale of a war but is something small enough that maybe only relate to a single colony/village/town ect.

Yes, playing Gears 3 on your own on anything below Insane was incredibly easy, because you said your AI squadmates would always revive you, and they themselves could never properly die so you rarely had reason to worry. Though I never liked playing Gears 3 on Insane mode, because they've never felt like they work without the DBNO system. You couple the removal of DBNO with how you'll drop from like a couple of bullets and you've got a level of difficulty that is just no fun, and having to potentially rely on three other people who are just as fragile as you? No thanks. I liked how it was in the first Gears (and I think Gears 2), where they simply upped the damage modifiers even further but still allowed you revive one another, least in coop anywhoo.

Though as for the bosses, I can't remember many that I liked. The Berzerker ones have always been fun, that is besides the Lambent Zerker in 3. The raft boss I mentioned earlier I liked too, but they're the only ones that come to mind really. RAAM was a pile of piss, Skorge in Gears 2 felt like he was too scripted, and Queen Myrrah at the end 3 often always threatens to completely spin my love for these games on their end because Oh My God can that boss go fuck itself right in the rectum.

I am strictly a single player. But to have a buddy you understand (your significant other say, or a very close friend,. And you go to town against the enemy on so many levels, tactical, strategical , as the savior, or the victim drawing your other half in,.It's what you do about it.

What an incredible experience. Not my game, but I am old. I like 2 so much more that 4 as an approach because it is a shared personal experience, with room to maneuver with intimate purpose.

@bybeach: Preach it, bruva.

I typically only coop with one other player anyway. If they tune the game that way they are tuning it the way 99% of coop player will play it, right?. So, how can that be bad? Oh, it sounds bad, but when you think about it four player coop was an outlier situation for most people. There is a certain sense to this.