Barely a month before the official release of the third-person shooter video game “Gears of War 4” on the Xbox One and the PC, game developer The Coalition has given Season Pass holders a major bonus.
During the launch of the game on October 11, “Gears of War 4” Season Pass holders shall be receiving a 17-pack Starter Air Drop instead of the previously reported six Gear Packs, details Gamerant.
It was Rod Fergusson, The Coalition studio head, who confirmed on Twitter recently that “Gears of War 4” will now come with more goodies than originally planned.
The Starter Air Drop shall contain five Versus Boosters, five Horde Boosters, five Operations Packs, and two Elite Packs. It shall come out via a total of 85 cards in all, which Fegusson describes as a sampler platter.
He also disclosed that Season Pass offers at retailers, which costs $50, will start getting updated soon.
The Starter Air Drop shall also include the VIP Vintage Pack, which features skins for weapons and a character, permanent DLC map ownership for 24-plus maps, and the Developer Playlist, which gives players access to modes, maps, and variants before their public release, details Gamespot.
Using Credits to purchase Gear Cards
When players progress through “Gears of War 4,” they will acquire in-game currency called Credits by playing Versus and Horde modes.
They can then use those earned Credits to purchase Gear Cards which shall offer player customization, emblems, weapon skins, Horde equipment and abilities, and Bounties that task players with unique challenges.
There is also an option for “Gears of War 4” players to obtain Gear Packs using real money or real world currency through the so-called microtransactions.
But in order to avoid future controversy, the developer firmly stated on the game’s website that no cards have any gameplay impact for the Versus Multiplayer. Thus, Gear Packs shall only contain cosmetics and Bounties for PvP Versus modes in “Gears of War 4.”
Ironing out some kinks
The Coalition is ironing out some kinks on the controller balancing of the game for the PC. Unlike in the Xbox One which only uses a controller, “Gears of War 4” in the PC could have a controller, or a keyboard and mouse for the player to be able to play the game.
Ryan Cleven, lead multiplayer designer of The Coalition for “Gears of War 4” said that ensuring that all types of control in playing the game for the PC is really important to them.
He explained that they have definitely work from the controller out. While they play with mouse and keyboard at times, the core of the game is about using a controller.
Cleven added that they are not giving one or the other a priority though as all types of game controls are important to them. However, they had to make sure that the controller experience is definitely perfect when it finally comes out of the Xbox One and the PC because the feature has been the legacy of the “Gears of War” franchise.
Cleven said that The Coalition does not really balance the PC versus the Xbox since each sort of balances themselves independently. He explained that both platforms use the same core tuning so when PC players go up against each other, they can choose to use a mouse and keyboard or they can use a controller.
On the Xbox, he said that they tune the game internally with a controller, so everything is balanced that way and they also make sure that the two groups playing competitively online are not actually playing with each other.
The “Gears of War” is a predominantly Xbox-exclusive franchise because it has for its publisher Microsoft Studios.
In fact, in the whole franchise, only the first game and its Ultimate Edition came to the PC. “Gears of War 4” will be the third game of the franchise that shall come to the PC.