Just a few hours after releasing a new trailer for Gears of War: Reloaded, developer The Coalition has joined the official Xbox podcast to reveal more details about the upcoming remake. The podcast features technical director Kate Rayner and studio head Mike Crump, who go on to talk about a host of different subjects, including discussing what makes Gears of War: Reloaded a more involved release for the studio than what a remaster would be.
“It’s fully remastered and enhanced to take advantage of modern hardware,” said Rayner when asked whether Gears of War: Reloaded is a remake or a remaster. “Going back to the original, we’ve increased the resolution by 900 percent, 9x, and doubled the frame rate. Campaign running at 60 frames per second now, and multiplayer supporting 60 as well as 120 frames per second. We support variable refresh rate, we support native high-dynamic range lighting, and we’ve also unlocked 4K assets and ultra-resolution textures that were not in the original console versions of the game.”
“We have 7.1.4 3D spatial audio, and we’ve improved the lighting, the shadows, and reflections, and really have pushed the quality of this title to be a full remaster on every device that it’s shipping on.”
The podcast also features some examples of the original Gears of War, running at 720p and 30 frames per second on the Xbox 360, compared to the upgraded visuals and frame rates of Gears of War: Reloaded. The example shows off an early part of the game’s opening level, and also gives us a look at the Ultimate Edition release of Gears of War which ran at 1080p and 30 frames per second.
“And then we have the Reloaded version running at full 4K, with 60 frames per second, and you can see a lot of details from the enhancements we have,” explained Rayner. “You can see like the carbon fibre in Marcus’s armour. You can see the enhanced texture details with the normal maps and the 4K textures in the environment, and you can also see the reflections off the pond, right? Those reflections are real time.”
On the multiplayer side of things, Rayner has confirmed that Gears of War: Reloaded will have a fully modernised back end system to support online multiplayer and matchmaking. This includes the dedicated servers built for PvP multiplayer getting an expansion in the form of more data centres all over the world. The servers also poll for data at a frequency of 60 Hz, further reducing the latency that players will face.
The PC version of Gears of War: Reloaded will also be quite optimised, with Rayner pointing out that the PC release of the title isn’t merely a port. “We’ve optimised the game for what players expect on PC,” she said. “We have uncapped frame rates, we have 4K, but also 5K ultra-wide resolution, we adapt the game to whatever resolution of whatever device that you run on. We have quite a lot of work in scalability to be able to support all the different devices that are out there including gaming laptops and PC gaming handhelds.”
Gears of War: Reloaded is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on August 26. The game will also be getting a multiplayer beta from June 13 onwards.
