Quick Review - Gears of War: Reloaded
There's No Stopping the Cole Train Baby
August 26, 2025 - Xbox Games Studios, The Coalition, Sumo Digital, Disbelief
Third-Person Shooter - Jarret Bradley (Reloaded) / Cliff Bleszinski, Rod Fergusson (Original)
Xbox Series Consoles, PS5, PC
This is a quick review of the remaster of the semi-remake Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. Since this is a re-release, I’ll be doing a much faster review.
Let out of prison, soldier Marcus Fenix joins the team of Delta Squad and fights off the Locust horde with help from his best friend Dom, former football player Augustus Cole, and the temperamental Baird.
The Boys Are Back in Town
For the first time since the Gears 5 expansion (Hivebusters), I played a Gears of War game, and man, did it feel good. I’ve been a fan of this series for so long, and I’ve been there from the get go since the original 2006 Xbox 360 release. Microsoft was kind enough to give this game free to owners of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which is how I got mine (although I would’ve had access through Game Pass). So how does it hold up? Well, I can definitely see why this was free for owners of Ultimate Edition, because it is Ultimate Edition. The game is a straight up port of the 2015 semi-remake, except it does run at a crisp 4K-60, and let me tell you, those 60 frames feel so good. The game’s 2015 version looks real pretty the majority of the time, but there are a couple of times you can tell the original game’s assets go back to a time when George W. Bush was President.
The gameplay ages really well, and I was quickly reminded why I love this series so much. The cover mechanics, the guns, the Lancer, the over the top macho action - it’s all here, and I missed it. The characters are still great. I completely forgot how awesome Cole is, the Cole Train, as he calls himself, is one of the most underappreciated characters in gaming. Dom and Baird do well in their roles, and the banter between the four adds personality to the game. I will say Marcus came off as a bit of an a-hole in certain moments, not that he’s unlikeable, just that you can tell what passed off as “badass” in the mid-2000s. General RAAM and the Locust all play their part as villains, although there’s not much there in personality outside of the Queen’s ramblings you get now and then.
The best part is how short the game is compared to today’s titles. In a world of everyone trying to make giant open world games that last fifty to seventy hours, it was nice to turn on a game and beat it in about eight to nine hours, just going through and going with the story and action set pieces. It proves a really good game doesn’t need to be that long.
Product of Its Time
That all being said, this game also shows its age in even ways I didn’t notice during the 2015 release. The game’s AI is stuck in 2006, and your squad will frequently get in the way, blocking shots or getting themselves killed. It’s not intolerable, but it is noticeable, and I constantly complained about it in my head every time it happened. The game’s visuals can also look very 2006. As I mentioned earlier, it looks pretty most of the time, but you’ll occasionally come across an asset from the 2015 version that hasn’t been polished and resembles an old game.
I was also taken aback by how simple the story is. Now I will say, I have fired up the sequel, and I am noticing that it’s the game that really starts to add lore and more emotion to the world and characters. So, this is just about setting up the lore and world of the story. Because of this, I’m sure newcomers will be surprised by how simple the characters and villains come off, considering many of them may have heard of the close bond many of the series’ fans have to the story. I hope that newcomers on PS5 get a chance to play the sequels in the future.
If you’re a newcomer to the series or a PlayStation diehard that has always wanted to play a Gears of War game, I recommend this game, and I think you’re going to have a blast with it. As the credits rolled, it reminded me why I loved the series in the past and I went ahead and started to play the sequel, with plans to slowly play the entire series before Gears of War: E-Day releases. However, and this is why you see an asterisk in the review box, if you’ve played this game before, and especially if you have Ultimate Edition already, there is no reason to play this unless you really badly want to play this in 4K resolution and 60 frames. I’ve seen some people call this a lazy port, and I think that’s a bit harsh. I will say it’s a simpler port than I think people wanted. But, for PlayStation fans, this is a chance to jump into one of the Xbox’s acclaimed franchises, and for me, it rekindled my love for the series.
This was the first game I played online to death. So good.
One of my all time favourites. I remember a friend of mine and myself leaning hard into the coop mode. I’m glad modern day gamers get a chance to experience it too, bugs, aging and all.