Gears Tactics - Gameplay Video & Discussion

PC Gamer went hands on with tactical turn-based strategy game Gears Tactics. The game is due to release April 28th on Steam.

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Gears Tactics was announced at E3 two minutes after a Gears Funko Pop mobile game, which automatically made me skeptical. Spin-offs can be a bad even when they aren't playing second fiddle to Funko Pops. I didn't expect Gears Tactics to be bad so much as I didn't expect much at all. But after playing Tactics for three hours, I was taking it seriously.

What I found was really fun strategy combat, a bit breezier than XCOM but a far better adaptation of Gears than I thought possible. Even in the context of an XCOM-inspired strategy game, chainsawing baddies in a shower of ludicrous gore is still the good stuff. 

Gears Tactics brings several surprising and thoughtful new ideas to what could've been a very derivative game, and the developers at The Coalition and Splash Damage really wanted to get across how serious they're taking this as a game built first and foremost for the PC. "From day one we wanted to write a love letter to PC gaming, care of the Gears brand," said design director Tyler Bielman. "It was really always in our minds that we wanted a deep enough experience, with compelling enough gameplay to really hold a PC gamer's attention."

That commitment to the PC also extends to the tech powering Gears Tactics, from its detailed cutscenes to its embarrassment of graphics settings. But first, we had to talk about executions.

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