Gears of War 4 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the fifth main installment in the Gears of War series, and the first mainline entry not to be developed by Epic Games. The game was released worldwide on October 11, 2016. The sequel, Gears 5, is under development.
Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the game's combat, visuals and set pieces, while criticism was directed towards the campaign and writing.
Gameplay
Many gameplay elements from the previous games are reintroduced, along with new elements such as the Dropshot weapon that fires explosive drills and the Buzzkill that fires ricocheting sawblades at enemies. Players can also perform a short distance shoulder charge, knocking enemies off balance and enemies can also pull players out of cover and perform their own takedowns. The game features 4 categories of weather: from heavy breeze (trees, leaves, dust kicking up) and can grow into violent category 3 windstorms that can affect combat and weapon usage.
Like previous entries in the series, the story campaign can be played through co-operatively with a second player in a local or online co-operative mode.
Story
Setting
Gears of War 4 takes place 25 years after the events of Gears of War 3. Although the use of the Imulsion Countermeasure weapon destroyed all Imulsion on the planet Sera, killing the Locust and the Lambent in the process, the weapon forced humanity to adapt to new ways of survival after knocking out the use of fossil fuels, and bringing across the planet powerful windstorms called "Windflares". To protect the surviving human population from decline, estimated to be hundreds of thousands, the reformed Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) established walled-off cities to protect its citizens from the dangers outside, while declaring martial law to prevent any travel outside the cities. However, some human survivors rejected the viewpoints of the COG and formed a group called the "Outsiders" that live outside of the COG jurisdiction, conducting raids on COG territory to gather resources.
The game's main story focuses on J.D. Fenix (Liam McIntyre), the son of Marcus Fenix and Anya Stroud, who, alongside his friends Delmont "Del" Walker (Eugene Byrd) and Kait Diaz (Laura Bailey), deal with a new threat to humanity's survival.
Plot
The leader of the reformed Coalition of Ordered Governments, First Minister Jinn (Angel Desai), commemorates the 25th anniversary of humanity's victory over the Locust. An elderly Hoffman, who is present at the ceremony, recounts past battles at Aspho Fields, Emergence Day, and Anvil Gate.
Meanwhile, J.D. and Del have recently deserted the COG after disagreeing with Jinn's hardline policies and join a group of Outsiders led by Reyna (Justina Machado). In order to help their village, J.D. and Del decide to raid a nearby COG settlement under construction to steal a special fabricator. They are accompanied by Kait, Reyna's daughter, and her uncle Oscar (Jimmy Smits), a former Gear and Locust War veteran. Though they are forced to battle the COG's new robotic DeeBee soldiers, J.D. and his group manage to successfully steal the fabricator and escape back to their village. They are then confronted by Jinn (broadcasting via a DeeBee), who accuses them of kidnapping her people, much to their confusion, before launching an all out assault on the village. J.D. and his friends manage to repel Jinn's forces and get to work repairing the village's power generator. However, in the midst of repairs, unknown creatures raid the village, capturing everybody including Reyna and Oscar. As her last act, Reyna locks J.D., Del, and Kait inside the power station to protect them.
Dubbing the unknown attackers the "Swarm", J.D. reluctantly asks his father Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) for help. Marcus, who is still angry at J.D. for joining the authoritarian COG and then endangering himself by abandoning it, is reluctant to help J.D. until he shows him that the Swarm is not human. Suspicious, Marcus decides to lead the group to Fort Reval where thousands of Locust corpses were buried to dispose of them. After escaping another attack by Jinn's forces, the group reaches inside the city, where they are ambushed by a Snatcher that captures Marcus. As J.D. and his friends pursue the Snatcher, they find evidence of the Swarm being responsible for the abduction of COG citizens, whose bodies are being harvested to create more Swarm creatures. They also hypothesize that when the Locust were hit by the Imulsion Countermeasure, they did not die. Instead, their bodies underwent a long term metamorphosis over the last 25 years until the Locust evolved into the Swarm. J.D. eventually manages to track down Marcus and free him. Marcus reveals that the Swarm operates on a hive mind and that he was briefly connected to it, confirming their hypothesis that they are the Locust evolved and that Reyna is still alive and being kept at another Locust burial site, but none of the other villagers survived.
Determined to save her mother, Kait demands that Marcus lead them to her. He takes the group to Tollen Dam, where they discover that the burial site has been converted into a Swarm hive. Realizing that the hive's defenses are too formidable for them to breach on their own, the group fights their way to a radio antenna, where Marcus calls for the assistance of Augustus Cole (Lester Speight), Damon Baird (Fred Tatasciore) and Samantha Byrne (Claudia Black), with the latter two now being lovers. Baird, now a famed industrialist and the creator of the DeeBees, brings a pair of mech suits that J.D. and Kait use to fight their way into the hive. Inside, they find Reyna has been forcefully integrated into the hive's network, and removing her would result in her death. Despite this, Reyna requests that Kait end her life, which she tearfully does. She then inherits her mother's amulet, which had belonged to Kait's grandmother. However, upon closer inspection, it bears a resemblance to the symbol of the Locust Queen Myrrah - implying that Reyna was her daughter and Kait is her granddaughter.
In a post credits scene, it is revealed that Oscar managed to survive his abduction by the Swarm by cutting himself out of the Snatcher that had captured him.
