Gears of War games have had some of the best multiplayer action around ever since the days of the first game, and for Gears of War: E-Day, developers at The Coalition are looking to give fans plenty of options for online fun. While the game’s new take on Horde mode is shaping up to be the ultimate battlefield for players to enter, fans of traditional deathmatches aren’t being left out in the cold either. At Gamescom, The Coalition spoke to GameSpot about E-Day’s new Crucible mode and how it uses some battle royale inspiration to create a fast-paced round of 4v4 action.
The PvP mode blends your typical Gears of War spatial control with battle royale mechanics, as teams must grab the Power Core, bring it to a designated active zone, and hold their position while the opposition closes in on them. The catch is that the Power Core restricts your mobility and limits which weapons you can use, meaning that your team will need to watch your back. The core stores a close-range electrical charge attack, and the carrier can unleash a charged blast at point-blank range to fry an enemy player, but this attack does have a long recharge time. Once the Power Core enters the scoring zone, it will begin to shrink. This, in turn, creates high-stakes zone pressure, forcing players into brutal standoffs as the space around them tightens.
“It’s very obviously inspired by battle royale games, but it’s on a Gear-sized PVP map,” creative director Matt Searcy said to GameSpot. “At the beginning of the map, there’s lots of mobility, teams are moving around, you’re trading the Power Core back and forth. But as the map goes on, you see defensive teams start to build up a front around the player they’re protecting. And then, in awesome Gears fashion, the thing you’re going to hold puts you at a slight disadvantage. So we gave you a heavy weapon that’s basically a giant battery pack, and if somebody gets close to you within a really tight range, you can strip all the flesh off their body with a charge attack.”
Crucible is one of four PvP modes that will be available on launch day. The multiplayer options include traditional Team Deathmatch, Conquest, and Demolition, each of which has been reworked for E-Day. Team Deathmatch has a dynamic respawn system to move spawn locations closer to where fights are breaking out, Conquest puts its own spin on the classic King of the Hill experience, and Demolition revolves around teams planting bombs on enemy territory.
Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and it’ll also be a day-one release through Xbox Game Pass. For more on the game, you can read up on how The Coalition solved its biggest lore problem.