Gears Tactics
Developer The Coalition, Splash Damage Publisher Xbox Game Studios Format PC Release Out now
PC
Two men, as broad as they are tall, stomp into a room. “What are we looking for?” grunts one. “The most classified-looking file they got,” growls the other. It’s a reassuring moment: a line this knowingly silly, delivered with a straight face, immediately lets us know we’re in safe hands. And familiarity counts for a lot in Gears Tactics; it’s a big part of what makes this spin-off feel so instantly accessible. Your units advance towards cover in that recognisable crouched waddle, magically adhering to those convenient waist-high walls as if their armour were lined with magnets. There are frag grenades, Lancers and Gnashers; Corpsers, Kantus and Wretches, too. And when the Theron Guards and Boomers show up, we feel strangely comforted to know exactly what kind of trouble we’re in.
For all its reputation as a gung-ho shooter, Gears always seemed well-suited to turn-based tactics. The phrase Cliff Bleszinski liked to use was “stop and pop”; here, you’re simply given longer to stop so you can, well, pop more effectively. Each unit has three actions per turn, split between movement, shooting and special abilities, the latter accrued as they (slowly) level up. The maps aren’t grid-based, giving you more granular control over movement, and of your overwatch, where you can control the angle and range of your vision cone. This way, you can ensure the maximum possible coverage when you’re holding a position, or else focus your fire on a bottleneck to keep out the multiple Locust you can see preparing to funnel through it.
It’s more than just a gory XCOM, in other words, though you’ll experience that same stomach-churning sensation when a shot with an 80 percent hit rate misses the mark, particularly when it’s your last action of the turn. Or, worse still, when a round whistles wide of an explosive Ticker, which, in a deliciously horrible twist, scuttles closer after each volley – although you can also use this to your advantage, drawing its attention from a vulnerable ally. As you fight your way across dust-blown desert settlements and through abandoned medical facilities, the terrific level design forces you to reckon with environmental challenges alongside a steady drip-feed of new threats. With a range of elevations and sightlines to consider, when it seems you’re hunkered down and have every angle covered you’ll invariably find one opponent managing to circumvent your defences – even if you’re more frequently outnumbered than outthought. Even on the rare occasions that you survive quite comfortably, the intensity of these battles will convince you that you’ve just scraped through.
There are a few contrivances to make it work. Why a vanguard class unit’s full-throated yell is enough to scare Locust within a ten-metre radius out of cover is beyond us, but when their sniper has your heavy pinned down, or your lone healer risks taking two bursts of fire just by moving, you won’t care. We can just about buy that a lancer might need to reload after five shots, since it’s actually more like five bursts of fire, though a sniper with three rounds in the chamber smacks of inefficient gunsmithing. Still, it means you’ll agonise over whether to risk that last round on a 50/50 shot, or to set up an overwatch and hope that you’ll take your intended target down when they move on their next turn. (Invariably, they’ll move around the other side of the cover you’re aiming toward.) These limitations also make upgrades more valuable, such that you’ll risk breaking formation to gather a temptingly-positioned case that might just let you fire two more rounds before reloading.
Over time you’ll find ways to even the numerical mismatch, from mods that make your guns more powerful or accurate to clever skill combinations that increase the number of actions available per turn. You might tee up your sniper by leaving an opponent downed but not out, guaranteeing a kill shot that earns you a free reload. You could leave them alive in the hope of baiting out their allies, though the maxim ‘leave no Locust behind’ seems alien to your opponent – and besides, a bloody execution inspires everyone to a further action. Some classes don’t come into their own for a while – no spam-rolling your way out of trouble here, shotgun lovers – but with mods and abilities shortening skill cooldowns, scouts become more useful than they first appear. Throw in a sprint that covers two movement turns in one, plus proximity mines that can close emergence holes as soon as they open, and while the Gnasher may no longer be the dominant weapon, the unit wielding it becomes one of your greatest assets.
For a while, it works wonderfully. Every time you think you’ve hit upon a reliable strategy, Gears Tactics’ objective design and mission structure invites you to rethink your approach. Sometimes you’ll have to dig in without your two strongest units, while at others you’re forced into a forward march as a Nemacyst bombardment shortens the battlefield after every turn. One-man rescue missions ask you to extricate survivors from torture pods, then to keep everyone alive as you race to an evac point upon which the enemy has turned its sights.
Yet these smart twists gradually become formulaic over the course of a needlessly protracted second act and into its third. You’ll find the same challenges and maps cropping up time and again: though you’re often presented with a choice of side missions, you’ll have to complete the majority before you can move on. Those familiar ingredients, at first an asset, become a liability, the element of surprise waning as we find ourselves fighting enemies we’ve seen many times before. There simply isn’t enough game nor story to justify such a drawn-out campaign, as attritional wear and tear causes those well-oiled cogs to grind. The more we pop, in other words, the keener we are to stop.
When the Boomers show up, we feel strangely comforted to know exactly what kind of trouble we’re in