Gears Tactics Review: Gameplay Videos, Impressions and Speedrunning Tips

Gears of War invades another genre via Gears Tactics from developers Splash Damage and The Coalition, and it does so in a way only this series can.  

Intent on bringing a fresh approach to the turn-based tactics genre while oozing Gears style and lore, Gears Tactics is a surprisingly deep experience.

With a full-fledged campaign and enough tweaks to stand out, this is anything but a forgettable spinoff for one of the biggest series in the video game industry today. 

Graphics and Gameplay

Gears Tactics stands above most games graphically.

It is an impressive display of horsepower. The action is pulled back with a distant camera, but close-ups of the action reveal a Triple-A graphical experience. The cut scenes work could stand up right next to the recently released Gears 5, too.

Granted, it's mostly all still coated in the gritty, gory film the Gears series calls home. But the muddy hues and general somber tone fit the universe and sit atop a good-looking experience. As is always the case for the series, the sound design is brilliant. Voice lines are delivered well, and the never-ending stream of chainsaws, guns and grunts hit home in an engrossing way. 

From a presentation standpoint, the HUD layout and constant stream of information on the screen can take a long time to get used to—not that it's unexpected given the complexity of the game. But navigating the controls eventually becomes streamlined in its own right, and the on-screen discourse of information starts to feel like home. 

Similar to most turn-based tactics games, characters drop into a map and a fog of war steadily unrolls as players move. There's no grid confining players to the map itself, and the promise of secrets and secondary objectives encourage exploration. 

Players have a host of basic primary options during each turn. Actions like moving and shooting drain allotted action points assigned to each specific unit. In its most basic sense, taking cover, shooting and setting a unit to overwatch are the big three. The latter assigns a unit to monitor a cone-sized area of the map during the enemy's turn, punishing any sort of action within that cone—and it's something enemies often do too. The farther a player stretches the cone, the less accurate the shots will be. 

The speed of turns and engagements is supreme. While other heavy hitters in the genre mostly feature a smaller number of per-turn action points to slow things down and make players think, Gears Tactics strips that down and encourages multiple actions per turn. It's faster than most, fits the franchise well and feels good. 

The game often leaves a player feeling like their back is against the wall. More often than not, lots of enemies spawn and threaten to overrun an entire player's party. 

But the pressure, paired with speed, makes for a thrilling experience. Players can slow it down and really think about each and every move if they want too. Matching the pace is rewarding, however. One unexpected catch with the game missing a grid system is enemies being free to go wherever they want—some baddies will loop into advantageous positions all around the players, keeping the pressure always at a notable high. 

Some typical turn-based tactics objectives seep into the gameplay loop. Regardless of what the objective are, all of them throw a huge number of enemies at the player to keep pushing the tempo in fun ways. 

Where Gears Tactics deviates again, though, is in the form of boss battles that fit the Gears universe. These are more tied-down experiences compared to the open-map levels and play quite a bit like a raid boss in an MMO. 

Another example of the Gears narrative working with the typical expectations of the turn-based genre in the gameplay is the presence of Emergence Holes, which spit out Locust Horde enemies until players manage to halt it with a grenade. 

Other noteworthy inclusions are friendly revivals and executing downed enemies, which adds another strategic layer to gameplay because it rewards more action points for the current turn.

While all of this is fun and engrossing, Gears Tactics pours it on thick and heavy pretty much from the jump. There are five different classes with varying abilities, weapons and passives to consider. Each character has unique skill trees. Each character can have a ton of different armor items and weapon mods that also play into the on-screen action. Secondary weapons like a pistol pack a "Disabling Shot" that shatters enemy Overwatch, for example. 

In short, there is a big difficulty curve and it's easy early on to proceed with the feeling players aren't getting maximum value out of what they have at their fingertips. And they probably aren't, but getting through waves of enemies while making it all work is a fun gameplay loop.

A big bonus? Permadeath. Not all players will agree, of course. But having the specter of permanently losing a character for mistakes on the battlefield is a nice feature to have in these sorts of games. So too is the inclusion of unlockable modes and challenges beyond the base campaign. 

Story and More

Gears Tactics brings a noteworthy Gears of War tale to a new genre.

This is still the usual muscle-bound universe with a ton of overdramatic cues—but in the usual fun, cheesy way. The real impressive feat is just how well it works within the confines of a different genre, which includes good-looking cinematics bookending each mission's gameplay.

Gabe Diaz (yes, Kait's father from Gears 5) and Sid Redburn have to take out big bad Ukkon, a Locust geneticist. If one has experience with the series, you know how this plays out. It's a fun ride and the cut scenes work is admirable, though the real highlight of the experience is the gameplay itself. 

As hinted, there is a surprising amount of depth beyond the basic actions of moving characters all over the place. 

Some of the game's deeper on-map experiences are a blast once understood. One character might have an ability that is costly but dislodges a particular enemy from cover. Once that's done, the rest are free to take unblocked shots. Chaining abilities like this in a growing tide of unstoppable forward momentum is the key to pushing through certain situations. 

In others, hunkering down with a few angles covered on overwatch while a support throws healing grenades on friendlies is the only way to survive a massive push. Most abilities feel like they tie into drumming up some momentum like this. One character can cloak and get into a position without being seen, which then sets off a chain of events.

Menu navigation can be intimidating, though. Hitting the barracks between missions reveals a laundry list of items to wade through for multiple characters.

Each character has a massive skill tree littered with bonuses. And picking through the tree to make character builds that coincide well with a planned-out party is fun, if not a time investment. Elsewhere in these menus, each character has three different armor slots (helmet, torso, legs) and there are four different mod slots for each main weapon. Synergizing these slots with accuracy bonuses and passive abilities is its own involved task. 

None of this is to say the options are unwelcome, but a ton of non-mission planning can be intimidating, especially at first. 

To its credit, the game offers a very deep level of customization such as making guns and armor whatever color a player desires and choosing hairstyle, facial hair, tattoos, scars, headgear, undershirts and more. Some of it, like a big musclebound COG soldier in bright purple armor, will look hilarious in the Gears universe.

Gears is the perfect universe for this sort of game. Side characters that can face permadeath, for example, are procedurally generated. There's nothing too unorthodox about just adding another COG grunt to the fight. 

The lack of co-op and multiplayer is also natural. The former might've been nice but would also probably clash with the desired pace, which is blinding and brilliant. The latter would face the same hurdles, and then some. Nailing down a Triple-A campaign wrapped in superb tactics gameplay with nice replayability options feels like it was the right call. 

Speedrunning Tips

A game based in a series as popular as Gears of War is bound to boast plenty of speedrunning potential.  

Players are going to find some character and ability combinations that just brutalize the game's systems. Combining shots that kill with executions that dole out action points can keep a single turn going for a long time as it is on an initial play through. That's before speedrunners get their hands on it and break things down at an even deeper level while going for world-record times.

Early speedrunning tips follow basic principles. Besides general items like skipping cut scenes, outfitting the main two heroes (who aren't permitted to die) in certain ways should lead to some nice preliminary times. 

With the main support, grabbing skills that heal allies when you get a kill plays very well into the always-pushing-forward nature of a speedrun. Focusing the Vanguard's talents on dislodging enemies from cover and doing additional percentage-based damage on an injured enemy will make sure the Locusts keep falling and the ones behind the group can't catch up. 

Outfitting the party with two support/healers is probably the best bet to make sure the group has plenty of sustain through even the nastiest surprises. Doubling up on Vanguards or bringing out a heavy to hunker down and support those tough healing moments would work, too. 

But that's the beauty of runs given the tools here—there isn't a wrong way to go about it and should make the discovery stage of best practices must-see material. 

Conclusion

The Gears series feels like a natural fit for the genre. An uptick in speed and pressure makes the game a constant enjoyable challenge. Add in some high-quality story beats and some fun wrinkles like boss battles, and this is far from just a little forgettable spinoff. 

Which isn't to say everything is rosy. There are a ton of menus to navigate, and things can get messy on the HUD while trying to swap between different weapons, abilities and more. 

But the faults are minor and the game majors in things the rest of the genre might need to take note of, if not borrow. The pacing of the action and the customization afforded to players is admirable, and the highlight of a package that makes Gears Tactics one of the year's top surprises.