After years of endless war, humanity had finally found peace, until the emergence day! And, enters the need for Gears!

Gears Tactics is another segment in the evergreen series of Gears. It is developed by Splash Damage, in collaboration with The Coalition. It is a turn-based tactical game that was released on 28th April 2020. So far, the game is only available for PC, however, Xbox One will get its share of the game real soon.

There is no denying that Gears has to be one of the most successful third-person shooter series so far. As soon as you log into the game, you’ll realize that the developers at Splash Damage really went an extra mile for this sequel. Or prequel, if I must say? Sounds confusing, right? Well don’t worry, my choice of words will start making sense once you dig further into this review.

After playing the game for a few minutes, it clicked with me right away that the atmosphere back at X-COM will not be a very welcoming one at the given moment. The game has bid its farewells to the third-person gameplay and has moved on to a turn-based strategic gameplay. And trust me, it’s not just any other zoomed out strategic game, it’s the best one in the stores right now. Not only has it presented X-COM with a head-on competition, but it has also opened up new dimensions for Gears fanatics.

The story will not make sense to you initially, nor will it fit in any of the franchise’s story. This is because it is set in a time-machine and time travels almost 12 years back from the original Gears of War story. You will find yourself picking up parchments from different titles from the Gears saga and putting them together to build a complete mind-map of what happened before the events of the original Gear.

In the review that follows, we will talk about our gameplay experience, how its visuals are, and what Splash Damage aims for you to see.

If you have had the privilege of playing strategic games before, or even X-COM, playing the game would be very easy for you and you will not come across anything that is from out of the world of strategic gameplays. The game does share a few tactics with X-COM, but most of the features have just been teleported over from the previous titles of the Gear series, in a turn-based gameplay.

“Gears Tactics features squads of soldiers led by Gabe Diaz and Side Redburn, who’re two veterans. They’re here to go up against a general of the Locust Horde, who’re some monsters that have taken control of the planet. You will spawn into the game standing witness to Gabe leading a squad against the locusts.”

The game is backed with mesmerizing voiceovers and they totally fall in line with the nature of your characters. Other than that, the game unrolls in your favor where ever possible. You will be called out by your teammate in their grumpy voices if you are doing something that will cause you to lose the battle. The cutscene will give you the information about the enemy you are about to face, so that you can mentally prepare yourself with what you’re about to reckon with. Like at the very beginning, I was shown that I had to go up against Wretch and they would immediately attack me if I closed up on them.

Overall, the game is all about tactical battles, one after the other. You will be given five characters to form your team, and some of those five available slots will be already be reserved by some compulsory team members. Like most other action games, you will be able to upgrade your characters as you progress through the levels.

A major drawback to the game is that there will be no new weapons as you advance through the levels, but only new upgrades. Owing to the exceptional visuals of the game, the upgrades you settle for will prove their presence to you during battle, such as a new and fancier barrel on a shotgun. Though no matter how fancy, a shotgun will still be a shotgun. The upgrades are not just for the looks, but they will also improve the performance of the gun, which will obviously come at a cost. You may find yourself getting a new magazine to load more ammo, but in return you will get more damage during the battle.

You can change the name of your character and give them a few customizations, but the face stays. You cannot customize the face.

If you compare it with its direct competitor, X-COM, you will find the game is comparatively less strategic. You won’t have to stand and plan your next ten moves before you do anything. It is also easier to cover up your mistakes in Gears Tactics as compared to X-COM. Conclusively, the players don’t need to tense up too much in Gears Tactics, whereas in X-COM, the gameplay seems somewhat more rigid.

Finally, Gears Tactics is a fun filled game with lots and lots of exciting tactical battles and objectives that pop up during the gameplay.