A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced a new remaster of its first Gears of War game, Gears of War Reloaded. This is the second remaster of GoW, as in August 2015, we got the Ultimate Edition. So, how does Reloaded compare to Ultimate Edition, and is it a meaningful upgrade?
YouTube’s ‘Cycu1’ has shared an early graphics comparison between these two versions. As such, we get to see the visual tweaks and enhancements that will be featured in Reloaded. And, to be honest, I’m a bit disappointed with this remaster.
Gears of War: Reloaded seems to use the same 3D models as the Ultimate Edition. The devs didn’t update them. Because of this, the game’s environments can look blocky, and the characters might not look as good as expected.
The only meaningful visual change is the 4K textures. As far as I can tell, the lighting also looks similar to the Ultimate Edition. That’s not a bad thing. However, I was expecting something more than a 4K asset enhancement.
Perhaps the best thing about GoW: Reloaded is its PC features and QoL improvements. For instance, the PC version will have support for ultrawide monitors and variable refresh rates. It will also come with a benchmark mode. Plus, there will be support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and AMD FSR 3.1 from the get-go.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition used Unreal Engine 3 and had a lot of problems on PC when it first came out. One big issue was stuttering when moving around. So, the big question now is this. Will Gears of War: Reloaded have the same problems? If nothing has been improved behind the scenes, many PC players might not care about it.
Gears of War: Reloaded feels like it was made mainly for newer consoles, and that makes sense. But for PC players, it just seems like a slightly better version of the Ultimate Edition. Since that version came out 10 years ago, this one doesn’t feel very exciting or new. It’s kind of disappointing. If you’re a big Gears of War fan, try not to expect too much. This isn’t a big remaster like what we saw with Oblivion.
Microsoft will release Gears of War: Reloaded on August 26th.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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