Gears 5 brings back the series’ popular Horde mode but shakes things up with what developer The Coalition calls “Hero characters.” Gears of War 4 had character classes in its Horde mode, but they didn’t feel distinct from one another. This time, however, The Coalition has given characters their own unique ability cards and Ultimate to make them stand apart from each other. Some of these simply act as a great way to deal a bunch of damage, while others work in conjunction with each other to each become more effective–like Marcus’s instant headshots (and AOE buff that spreads to nearby allies) paired with Fahz’s ability to see and shoot through walls.

Despite these distinguishing traits, the vast majority of characters are still going to play like a Gears of War character. This isn’t a bad thing because playing Horde mode as Marcus Fenix, The Terminator’s Sarah Connor, or any other gun-toting character, is a ton of fun in Gears 5. And with the new adjustable difficulty, which increases your rewards for every modifier you flip on, there’s plenty to challenge yourself with. That said, The Coalition created a brand new type of character for Gears 5, repurposing the campaign’s drone assistant Jack as a support character in the same vein as Mercy from Overwatch.

I recently played as Jack for nearly 30 rounds of Horde mode, and in that time I got the hang of what a good Jack player is responsible for and should focus on. Healing your teammates and making sure they’re safe is the obvious priority, and with the various turrets, decoys, and traps that players can construct, keeping these contraptions repaired and full of ammo is also paramount to success. However, I wasn’t just babysitting my team the entire time. Jack can be impactful individually and is often the most important character on the battlefield, able to turn the tides of defeat and get his team back in the fight.

A great example of Jack’s importance came up when I spoke to lead multiplayer producer Otto Ottosson. We spoke about Jack and his different utilities in Horde mode, when Ottosson, who told me he’ll take any chance to play a good support class, mentioned that he mains Jack.

“I’ve had moments where the team is all down, and they’ve even been killed,” Ottosson recalled. “Jack has this cloak ability … but if he gets too close to the enemy he de-cloaks. They become aware of him. So I was going around, picking up their COG tags, and trying to find my way around as the enemy can’t see me to get to the fabricator and spawn them back in. It’s very different from any other character you play in Gears.”

And it’s true. Playing Jack in Horde mode almost turns it into a stealth game. Whenever you’re not performing an action or speedboosting, you’re cloaked. This lets you do things like sneak up on a particularly bothersome baddie and shock them with your zapper, freezing them in place and dealing a small amount of damage. You’re not going to take on an entire army by yourself, but utilizing Jack’s zapper and communicating with your team can mean the difference between success and defeat. Shocking an enemy to prevent them from destroying your team’s meticulously placed turrets and then calling over a teammate to help you defeat them is one facet of Jack that makes for a satisfying new way to experience Horde mode.

Jack’s innate stealth abilities also help in support situations. At one point in our match, one of our teammates was grabbed by a Snatcher and pulled away from us. A group of Swarm soldiers stood between us and the Snatcher, but as Jack, I was able to sneak my way up to the Snatcher and shock him until he let go of our teammate. It’s moments like this that made me feel like the MVP of our match, and I never fired a gun… at least, not as Jack himself.

Jack’s Ultimate is carried over from one of his abilities in the campaign. In Gears 5’s story, you can send Jack to use Highjack on an enemy, which turns them against their Spawn brethren to help you for a short period of time. This works similarly in Horde mode, except when you actually trigger the ability on a specific monster, you take control of them yourself. The enemies aren’t particularly interesting to control, as they’re mostly all just big, lumbering creatures, but if you hijack the right one at the right time, you can devastate the current enemy wave. I was able to hijack a rocket salvo-carrying DeeBee and completely obliterate the Swarm soldiers running ahead of me. It was extremely satisfying. You aren’t able to pull this off every wave, but when you can, it’s an incredible change of pace.

The focus on Hero characters with unique abilities and Ultimates is an interesting direction to take Gears’ Horde mode. The abilities and Ultimates seem to deliver another layer of teamwork that incentivizes working together and coordinating your attack. Jack is the cherry on top, serving as Gears’ first true support character, a stark contrast to the guns-blazing action that the series is so well known for. I think Jack could be a great way to bring new types of players into Horde mode. It’ll be interesting to see how players take to him and how he evolves as you level up and get new ability cards.

Thankfully, Gears 5 is expected to receive quite a bit of support for its multiplayer modes, Horde included. Multiplayer design director Ryan Cleven told me that Gears’ map builder is coming to Horde, in addition to new characters. There are also plans for big multiplayer expansions every three months, including a completely free progression system called Tour of Duty, which works similarly to a battle pass.

To learn more about Gears 5, how it handles microtransactions, and more, check out our articles below:

• Gears 5: Huge, Open Levels And Creative Combat Deliver Big Changes
• Gears 5’s Campaign Is Inspired By Open World Games And RPGs
• How Gears 5’s Microtransactions And Multiplayer Progression Work

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-5s-first-support-hero-is-an-exciting-additio/1100-6469485/

Gears 5 makes a number of big changes to the series with its new hero, Kait, along with bigger levels and some RPG elements. These ideas came from developer The Coalition, but how did Microsoft feel about these changes? “They actually don’t have any creative input at all,” The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson told GameSpot in a recent interview.

According to Fergusson, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty and overall Xbox boss Phil Spencer put a lot of trust in their studio heads to manage their own projects.

“It’s really about trusting the studio heads and the teams there to recognize what’s the best way to leverage whatever it is they’re building,” he said. “Matt has a great line around just building great games. It’s just the notion of don’t worry about business models, don’t worry about subscriptions, don’t worry about changing things to adopt to a particular strategy. If you make an awesome game, then we can take that awesome game and apply it to different strategies.”

The first and most important rule is to “make a great game and focus on quality of execution,” Fergusson said. “We say what we do and we do what we say, and when we say we’re going to deliver you a game, we deliver you a game, and we do it at the highest quality we can.”

Fergusson said creative decisions shouldn’t be made from higher-ups on the top-down model. “I think the strength of the bottom-up way we’re doing things now allows for each studio to have its own identity and to be creative–the top-down stuff doesn’t work,” he said. “And we saw that I think. I was part of the Gears of War Kinect game that never saw the light of day, and that was okay. How do we force something to be on strategy? And now the strategy is to make awesome games and then we’ll figure it out.”

The business models at Xbox have indeed changed since Gears of War 4 came out. All of Microsoft’s first-party games–including Gears 5–launch into Xbox Game Pass for no extra cost. Microsoft hasn’t said how this change has impacted developers; some have wondered how royalty payments and other sales-related metrics change in this new model. Those specifics remain unknown.

Whatever the case, Fergusson said he’s focused on growing the Gears of War franchise to get it back to where it was during its heyday when it was developed by Epic Games. (Microsoft bought the Gears of War franchise from Epic in 2014 for an undisclosed sum).

“We looked at it like this: okay, Epic put Gears of War on a shelf and said, ‘We’ll never make it again.’ So when Microsoft bought Gears, I was really excited about the fact that we can actually see where this is capable of going,” Fergusson said. “And then sort of parallel to what Microsoft was doing, we wanted to expand the audience and the reach of the Gears of War brand. So how do we go back to what it was in its heyday?”

Gears 5 launches on September 10, but the game unlocks four days early for people who buy the game’s Ultimate edition or subscribe to Xbox Game Pass. The game is available to pre-load right now, and you can see GameSpot’s rundown of the Gears 5 server start times, launch maps, and more.

For more, check out GameSpot’s new preview of Gears 5: Gears 5: Huge, Open Levels And Creative Combat Deliver Big Changes

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-5-dev-says-microsoft-had-no-creative-input-a/1100-6469505/

Metro Exodus was among the first big-name games that skipped Steam in favor of releasing exclusively on the Epic Games Store. This announcement upset some portion of the audience, in part because the game was up for pre-order on Steam before the switch was made. Those who pre-ordered on Steam had their orders honored, but the move still caused some controversy.

In an interview with GI.biz, Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz said his company’s deal with Epic did indeed cause “some ripples,” but overall he is “very happy” with how the game is performing commercially.

“Overall, I’m still of the opinion like I was at the beginning that, as an industry and as a publisher, we should welcome Epic and their business model,” he said. “We have a strong relationship with Epic and we continue to have a strong relationship with Steam as well.”

One sour spot for Kundratitz was the timing of the announcement. He said he wished his company could have revealed the news sooner. “That was not perfect,” he said.

Looking forward, Kundratitz said Koch Media–which owns Deep Silver and itself is owned by THQ Nordic AB–will continue to consider more Epic exclusivity deals in the future. The company does not have a “no Steam” policy, as it will release the game Iron Harvest on Steam in September.

Part of the reason why Koch cut a deal with Epic for Metro Exodus was because the Epic Games Store pays more to publishers. Steam typically gives 70 percent of game revenue to publishers, while the Epic Games Store pays 88 percent. “We need to embrace a digital partner that offers a much more compelling rev share model than anybody else, and I think they act as a role model for us and for other digital partners as well–a 70/30 split is quite frankly anachronistic,” he said.

Back in February, Kundratitz said much the same when it was revealed that Metro Exodus was leaving Steam for Epic. “Epic’s generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players,” Kundratitz said.

Metro Exodus skipping Steam did not appear to hurt the game’s sales. THQ Nordic announced in May that Metro Exodus sold 2.5 times more copies than Metro: Last Light did during its PC launch window. Exodus recouped all development and marketing costs shortly after launch.

In other news about the Epic Games Store, Ubisoft recently explained why it no longer releases games on Steam, which the company says has an “unrealistic” business model.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metro-exec-on-epic-games-store-exclusives-we-shoul/1100-6469508/

Pokemon Masters is officially out for iOS and Android, allowing you to team up with a variety of legendary trainers, gym leaders, and champions in a brand-new region. Though the basics of the Pokemon series are still there–such as battles and evolutions–a lot of Masters plays very differently from a traditional Pokemon game.

To get you started, we’ve compiled all of the basics of what you need to know to understand how Masters works. The game has you visit a brand-new region where you’re partnered with Pikachu. Plenty of other notable trainers and their Pokemon from all over the world have traveled to the region as well, giving you the opportunity to befriend and team-up with them as you all journey together.

Sync Pairs And Their Stories

In Masters, you don’t catch new Pokemon, you recruit sync pairs to your team–and, oh boy are there a lot to recruit. Each pair consists of a legendary trainer, gym leader, or champion and their partner Pokemon. Each pair has their own unique story too, which typically plays out by evolving the partner Pokemon but can also be unlocked by just playing with the pair. Unlocking these pairs is usually random, though you can drop some cash to get the ones you want.

Sync pairs grow stronger as they win battles and gain experience. The number of stars next to the trainer’s name determines the max level they can reach. For example, most of the sync pairs you’ll encounter early on will have three stars and have a max level of 30. The main exception is Rosa and Snivy, who are a five-star sync pair, and one of the best set of partners you can have on your team for the early game thanks to their powerful “Time to Energize” sync attack. You can increase the star number of any sync pair up to five through the use of Power-Up items. At five stars, the level cap is 40.

Once you’ve earned your first PML Leader badge, you’ll unlock the ability to increase that level cap even further. Maxing out a sync pair requires them to have five stars and be level 100.

Fundamentals Of Battling

In Masters, Pokemon battles are three-on-three tag battles between six sync pairs. You’ll have to balance your team as best you can to account for every battle, defeating all of your opponent team’s Pokemon before they beat you. If you need assistance, clicking “Optimize” while selecting your team will cause the game to automatically assign the three best sync pairs for the job. Hitting Auto Mode during a fight will cause your sync pairs to keep fighting for you if you happen to be distracted by real-world things and become idle in-game.

Every sync pair has its own HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed stats. The first five all work as they did in previous Pokemon games. A sync pair’s HP determines how much damage the Pokemon can take before fainting. Attack determines how much damage the Pokemon in a sync pair can deal out with physical moves, while the Defense stat determines their resistance to physical moves. Special Attack and Special Defense are the same but for special moves.

Fundamentally, Speed works the same as it always has by determining the order of when each Pokemon can attack. However, Masters is not a turn-based RPG like traditional Pokemon games. Instead, battles occur in real-time and each Pokemon move has a cool-down rate tied to a gauge. Thus, a sync pair’s Speed stat determines how quickly the partner Pokemon can recharge its moves and attack again.

It may not sound like too big of a change for the Speed stat, but Masters departure from turn-based battles makes the stat more important than it’s ever been. It’s definitely something to keep in mind as you make it further into the game and unlock more powerful moves that require longer cool-downs.

Elemental And Class Typing

Each sync pair is assigned one or two type strengths and one type weakness. So don’t just assume a fire-type Pokemon will automatically be effective against all grass, ice, bug, and steel Pokemon. It will only be strong against one or two of those types. Same goes for weaknesses. Instead of being weak to ground, rock, and water, a fire-type Pokemon will only be weak to one. These strengths and weaknesses change depending on the sync pair, so, for example, not all fire-type Pokemon will have the same strengths and weaknesses.

Not only does each pair have an elemental type, but they also have class typing too. Every sync pair fits into one of three classes: strike, support, or tech. Strike pairs have high Attack and Special Attack stats, but lower HP. Support pairs are the exact opposite, and usually learn HP-restoring attacks and status-boosting moves. Tech pairs typically lack high damage dealing moves and instead excel at learning attacks that inflict status conditions, like paralysis and poison, on the opponent’s Pokemon.

When forming your team, class typing is definitely something to keep in mind. Even if your elemental typing ensures you have an advantage over your opponent, you may want to switch one of your sync pairs out for another if they’re all in the same class. A team consisting of all tech pairs, for instance, potentially won’t be able to deal out enough damage to take advantage of their elemental dominance.

Upgrading Your Move Gauge

Every sync pair starts out with only two moves, with one typically usable by the trainer and the other by their partner Pokemon. Only Pokemon moves deplete the move gauge that allows you to attack. However, trainer moves can only be used a certain number of times each battle.

You can learn more moves, however, for an initial cap of four. You unlock new moves through Training Machines, or TMs for short. Not to be confused by Technical Machines, or TMs, of course–the item that’s been used to learn new moves since Pokemon’s first generation of games. Why would that be confusing? Anyway, to teach a sync pair its third move, it will require five TMs. The fourth move (and any passive abilities that the sync pair can learn) will require rarer items in a much greater quantity–a quantity that increases with every additional move after the fourth. The items change depending on the pair.

Unlike traditional Pokemon games, though, you’re not limited to a maximum of four moves forever. For 30,000 coins, you can unlock another slot. You can unlock another for 100,000. So before unlocking moves for a sync pair beyond their fourth, it may be worth investing some coin so that you don’t have to forget anything.

Leveling Up

Like previous Pokemon games, you can level up by just battling. However, there are special battles you can complete and training you can undergo to level up faster.

Early in the story, you’ll unlock the training areas. There are four: level up, strike, support, and tech. As the name of the first area implies, heading into this training ground will help a sync pair gain extra experience and level up faster. The latter three allow you to earn items that assist sync pairs in learning new moves and passive skills without the use of TMs. All four training areas can be completed multiple times. You should do them as often as you can too since sync pairs will level up and grow stronger faster as a result. And once they’re strong enough, you can send your sync pairs into the supercourses.

Supercourses And Rare Items

The supercourses are the more difficult but more rewarding variations of the training areas. You progressively unlock more difficult and rewarding supercourses with each one you complete. However, each supercourse can only be completed three times a day so you need to consider which pairs need the power-up boost more.

Although rare items can be found or bought, you typically won’t run into them until a good deal into Masters’ campaign. Until you reach that point, the supercourses are the easiest way to unlock them. Your team will need to be very strong to take on the higher-level supercourses, but it’s there that you can unlock valuable items like Ultra Buff Blend. In contrast, 50 Great Buff Blends are needed to buy an Ultra Buff Blend from the in-game shop–something that’s far easier to do but will take you a lot longer to acquire.

Co-Op Play

If you open your Poryphone, you can find your personal ID that allows you to become friends with other players and battle together. In co-op, battles play out the same way but you’re only a third of a team and thus need to communicate with your fellow humans.

“Even in person, co-op play isn’t easy; I was surprised at how close some of the battles ended up, even on the easier of the two difficulties available,” Kallie wrote in GameSpot’s Pokemon Masters preview. “There’s also a special ‘unity attack’ you can unlock if you chain enough attacks as a team without taking damage, which takes a bit of coordination or luck to execute.”

Evolving The Pokemon Within Your Sync Pairs

Both evolving Pokemon and unlocking their Mega Evolutions are accomplished very differently in Masters in comparison to the simple hurdles in previous games. It honestly has way too many steps, and only certain Pokemon can evolve. We know the Pokemon listed below can evolve and Mega Evolve, but we’re still testing the game. Given Rosa and Snivy’s usefulness in the early game, getting Snivy to evolve into Servine might be where you want to start.

Sync Pairs With Pokemon That Can Evolve In Pokemon Masters

• Barry and Piplup (evolves into Prinplup and then Empoleon)
• Kris and Totodile (evolves into Croconaw and then Feraligatr)
• Lyra and Chikorita (evolves into Bayleef and Meganium)
• Pryce and Seel (evolves into Dewgong)
• Rosa and Snivy (evolves into Servine and then Serperior)
• Viola and Surskit (evolves into Masquerain)

Sync Pairs With Pokemon That Can Mega Evolve In Pokemon Masters

• Agatha and Gengar
• Blue and Pidgeot
• Bugsy and Beedrill
• Karen and Houndoom
• Korrina and Lucario
• Noland and Pinsir

Daily Missions And Special Events

Every day, new daily missions will unlock in Masters–one of which is always just turning on and logging into the game. The daily counter resets at 11 PM PT / 2 AM ET / 7 AM BST / 4 PM AEDT, so you have until then to complete your missions for the day. Completing your daily missions allows you to earn in-game items. Masters also just has general missions that can be completed at any time, though these count more as achievements/trophies than ways to earn in-game items and rewards.

Once you complete chapter five in Masters’ story, you’ll be able to participate in the in-game limited-time events. These events will be built with different sync pairs in mind, so it’s best to be on the lookout for which event is next so you know which pairs to focus on in preparation for them. Completing the challenges in these events will net you limited-time rewards.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-masters-everything-you-need-to-know-to-get/1100-6469503/