The Coalition talked about how it was going to try and strike a balance between appealing to both competitive and casual players.

Gears of War 4 has its sights set on the eSports scene, but wants to welcome casual players as well. Only the host of the game actually has to buy the map, so every other player connecting to that particular game won’t have to purchase it as well. To play the maps that have been rotated out on private servers, players will need to purchase that map. However, to avoid overwhelming new players, maps will rotate out of public playlists. 10 maps will be available at launch with additional maps releasing every month post-launch for free. Among the most interesting details is how the developer is approaching DLC. When the playtest wrapped up, I found myself wishing I could play even more Dodgeball matches.Īll the DLC maps will be free – but there’s a catch.ĭuring the presentation before the playtest, The Coalition ran down its plans for what it was bringing to Gears of War 4's multiplayer. We had matches that lasted several seconds and one that went on until the game timer ran down just because the back and forth was so vicious and constantly changing. It’s a tense, exciting game where victory never feels like a sure thing, even when it’s one player versus five. If there are several people dead on a team, they’ll be placed in a queue, with each kill bringing back the person at the front of the respawn line. If that happens, you’re brought back into the game. Dodgeball is a variant of team deathmatch where once you’re killed you’re out of the game for good…unless one of your teammates kills an opponent. I was able to play both team deathmatch and a new mode called Dodgeball with other players during the session. The new Dodgeball mode is ridiculously fun. You can watch footage of me wrecking and getting wrecked here if you want to get straight to that, but here are some of the big takeaways from my time with the game and what The Coalition told us about its plans. A week ago we were finally able to get some hands-on time with Gears of War 4's multiplayer (about two hours' worth of time to be precise) and also got to hear some of The Coalition’s long-term plans for the multiplayer component.

Gears of war 4 campaign length