Who said big tough guys can’t have a soft spot in their hearts? The developers of “Gears of War 4” know this better than anyone, as is evident by the recent event they created for their fans to celebrate Valentine’s Day. While other games were going crazy covering the screen in pink and throwing hearts around for every little thing, “Gears of War 4” took things in the opposite direction and went for a “bromantic” holiday.
Two new maps were introduced to the game, both remakes of already existing levels from the franchise. War Machine was already featured in a previous “Gears of War” game, while Impact Dark is just a night-themed version of the already popular map Impact from “Gears of War 4” itself.
The night version of the level adds a lot to the gameplay and forces players to take on a more cautious, calculated approach as they make their way through the levels. The developers promised some tense combat moments with this update, and this is exactly what players got, as everyone had a lot of fun roaming around the darkened version of Impact and stalking their enemies.
The developers have obviously been paying attention to recent trends in the game’s community as well, as they also made some changes to the general gameplay rules, making the title a bit more accessible to newcomers, while at the same time leveling the playing field for everyone.
Those who regularly feel frustrated with the outcome of a certain match and want to quit will now be less incentivized to do so, and the experience should be a bit more pleasant for everyone who was previously annoyed by their matches getting interrupted by leavers constantly.
And of course, it wouldn’t be a truly special event if players weren’t also given some reward for participating – in this case, both new maps came with an XP boost as well as a bonus to credits earned while playing them. Needless to say, the game’s servers saw a lot of activity around those two maps during the special period.
What did players have to say? One would expect the audience of “Gears of War 4” to have a condescending attitude towards an event like a Valentine’s Day celebration, but the reality was actually quite the opposite. Many players were excited by the developers’ move and joined the event happily, and in the end we saw a lot of activity not only within the game itself, but also around discussion boards related to it.
Considering that the developers have already made their money from this release and that they have no real incentive to keep these kinds of updates coming out, it’s truly commendable that they’re putting so much effort into the game after the initial release. Of course they’re going to benefit from that move significantly in the future, as it will give them much more credibility when making another release. But the point still stands, and many gamers will remember this event fondly.
Meanwhile, some have joined in the discussions about the recent update to express some of their own wishes for the game’s future. It’s clear that players of “Gears of War 4” have various interesting ideas for where they want the game to go next, but we don’t expect the developers to be able to implement all of them by the end of their current development cycle. However, they’re still showing that they at least listen to the community, which is still great for many of their fans.