2/5 ★ – Lord_Hazenberg's review of Gears 5.

Caution: Rant incoming. Gears of War was my go to series back in the day. Put god knows how many hours into horde mode & multiplayer in 2 & 3. Sadly I didn’t enjoy Gears 4 as much since the campaign was forgettable, and the multiplayer/coop modes were meh. Hence why I put off playing Gears 5 for so long, and oh boy I shouldn’t have even bothered with this one. I’ll only discuss what I played of the campaign with minor spoilers. It started off pretty okay. Marcus’ son JD was immediately given more of a character, and the missions were action packed with minor gameplay changes like stealth sections & a controllable robot companion you can upgrade. As always with the unreal engine, the graphics are immaculate with the Series X boosts. Then the first act ends with a hilarious attempt to make JD out as a villain for ordering soldiers to shoot “peaceful protesters” who were pelting them with incendiary grenades. Act 2 introduces the actual protagonist, Kait. A fugly androgynous looking thing whose only personality traits are getting headaches & jumping to conclusions. They weren’t subtle about it in the slightest either as she shouts at JD, “It’s not about you, it’s about me.” She & her partner only whine about JD the whole time since they have no character of their own. The second act also reveals the actual campaign structure; a semi open world with side missions & vehicle exploration. You will have long stretches of time where you go without seeing a single enemy as you traverse an empty map while messing around with stupid mini games. The complete antithesis of Gears of War, not a growth or expansion. I finally made the decision to stop at the beginning of Act 3 due to one line of dialogue. Protagonist girl meets an original character for the first time & back sasses him like the rude bitch she is. Then he responds while pointing at her, “I like this one.” They literally went the Captain marvel route. Have a character that people like tell the audience to like a character that has given them no other reason to. The purest form of lazy writing. Long story short, this game was a huge disappointment that might be the worst Gears campaign yet. Act 1 was a smokescreen disguising the actual game behind a fun start with some interesting character moments. Breaks my heart to see Microsoft mishandle another one of my favorite series alongside 343’s treatment of Halo. The Coalition studio does not understand Gears of War. If they did, we would’ve followed JD’s story as he further developed after Gears 4 instead of an awful side character forced into the protagonist role for some godforsaken reason.