Gears of War: Reloaded Multiplayer Beta PC Preview
This weekend saw the first of two multiplayer betas for Gears of War: Reloaded, the updated re-release of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition that first graced Xbox consoles in 2015, and the Windows Store on PC a year later.
Gears of War: Reloaded’s updates over Ultimate Edition are predominantly on the visual front, with remastered textures and other assets updated to 4K. On PC, the platform that I dived into the beta on, there’s newly added ultrawide support as well as full support for high refresh rates, up to 144Hz in multiplayer. This along with HDR and Dolby Vision 7.1 Surround Sound truly brings the original Gears of War into the modern age.
More recent releases in the Gears universe have had some fantastic PC ports, with Gears 5 especially being outstanding in terms of options and support for what was at the time, cutting-edge tech. In this respect, Gears of War: Reloaded is a bit of a letdown. At least in the beta. In terms of graphical options and settings, there’s not a whole lot on offer here. It’s adequate, but not much more.
With that said, this is essentially still a 10-year-old title at this point, albeit with some new visual bells and whistles applied, and as such is relatively light to run with pre-RTX graphics cards making up both the minimum and recommended specs. With the game maxed out at 1440p, I never once saw the frame rate dip below 110-120fps.
Performance on Steam Deck was also a pleasant surprise, running exceptionally well right out of the box, with a near-locked 60fps on high settings for the most part, and a predicted battery life of several hours.
The most interesting (and welcome) new feature of Gears of War: Reloaded is that of cross-platform play. This isn’t new to the series, both Gears of War 4 and 5 enabled play between Xbox and PC. What’s new, however, is that this is the first time that Gears is landing on PlayStation consoles, with a PS5 version being released alongside the Xbox and PC editions. Cross-play and cross-progression are available for all three platforms, allowing players to jump between them at will and maintain any progress at the same time.
In terms of how Gears of War: Reloaded plays, it’s how I remember it being in 2015, and 2006, albeit at a higher framerate. Wall bouncing, sliding, and the shotgun is still the meta, and aside from host advantage not being a thing anymore due to dedicated services (RIP my unstoppable ’06 shotgun) everything is as it should be.
Gears of War: Reloaded is shaping up to be the ultimate edition of the game, ironically. With new platforms, solid performance, cross-play, and progression all at a sensible price tag to boot. Owners of a digital copy of Gear of War: Ultimate Edition should be getting a free upgrade to Reloaded, but for everyone else, whether you’re new to the series or a returning veteran, this is looking like it’s going to be a stellar release.
Gears of War: Reloaded is set to release on August 26th, 2025 for Xbox Series Consoles, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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