Back in 2006, developer Epic Games released Gears of War, which during the early years of the Xbox 360 generation quickly defined itself as that other Xbox-only game that wasn’t Halo. Its chunky, cover-based combat helped usher in the boom of third-person shooters that dominated the late 2000s and early 2010s. A lot has changed since then. Epic has gone from the “edge lord with chainsaws” studio to the company that licenses every famous IP on Earth as a Fortnite skin. Xbox, meanwhile, seems like it’s slowly preparing to raise the white flag as Sony and Nintendo lap them in mindshare. With Reloaded, Microsoft had a chance to reintroduce Gears to a new generation before the next mainline entry. Instead, this re-release has left parts of the fanbase crying betrayal, rather than viewing it as a respectful re-examination of a 2006 classic.

The campaign still unfolds on the planet Sera, a world that looks like it was designed by someone who only listened to metal albums and stared at crumbling cathedrals. Several years after Emergence Day, the Locust Horde — mole people with a gym membership — have driven humanity to the brink. Players once again step into the boots of Marcus Fenix, a gravel-voiced soldier whose personality can be summed up as “gruff man yells and reloads.” Dom, Baird, and Cole return as squadmates, providing the series’ trademark mix of macho banter and reluctant camaraderie. While their dialogue still reeks of mid-2000s testosterone, there’s a certain charm in how blunt and absurd it all feels today. The remaster doesn’t rewrite their arcs, but with updated visuals and animation, the team at least feels more alive and expressive. Dom’s haunted desperation, Cole’s over-the-top hype-man energy, and Baird’s sarcastic complaints all remain intact. In a time when many modern games drown in self-serious monologues, Gears’ unapologetic meat-headedness feels almost refreshing.

If you’ve played Gears before, you know the drill: find cover, pop out, shoot, reload, chainsaw something in half, repeat. The cover system is still the defining feature, and to its credit, it remains one of the most satisfying mechanics in the genre. The act of slamming into a wall, blind firing over your shoulder, and then timing the perfect active reload to boost your damage still hits as hard as it did in 2006. This re-release smooths out some of the rougher edges of the original. Movement feels tighter, the aiming less sluggish, and AI teammates are slightly less brain-dead. Enemies flank more often, forcing you to rethink your positioning instead of just camping behind one piece of cover. The iconic lancer chainsaw is still absurdly fun, a mix of gruesome spectacle and cathartic release, even if its novelty has long worn off. That said, the linear design is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it feels refreshing compared to the bloat of modern open-world shooters stuffed with side quests and meaningless icons. On the other hand, the repetition of clearing corridor after corridor makes the game’s structure feel archaic. It’s a museum piece of an era when shooters were about tightly designed combat loops rather than sprawling sandboxes.

Visually, Reloaded is impressive without quite being transformative. Character models are beefed up with detail, lighting gives ruined cities more texture, and the Locust look nastier than ever. Still, it doesn’t quite match the bar set by modern remakes like Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space, which reinvented their classics for a new era. Reloaded feels safer, content to be a spruced-up version of what you remember rather than a bold reimagining. Where it shines most is atmosphere. The bleak streets, broken cathedrals, and claustrophobic underground tunnels capture the franchise’s signature blend of horror and action. Sound design remains stellar: gunfire has real weight, armor clanks with every step, and the guttural growls of the Locust are still unsettling. The remastered audio mix makes firefights punchy, while squad chatter cuts through with clarity, keeping you rooted in the chaos.

Gears of War: Reloaded is less a revolution and more a reminder. It’s a polished revival of a franchise that once defined the Xbox brand, but it doesn’t push itself beyond being a nostalgia trip. For longtime fans, it’s a chance to chainsaw Locusts in higher fidelity and remember a time when Xbox could still compete head-to-head with Sony. For newcomers, it’s an important piece of gaming history — the kind of game you play not to be blown away, but to understand why it mattered in the first place. But the longer you play, the clearer the cracks become. The dialogue is as gloriously absurd as it is dated, the mission structure sometimes feels repetitive, and the “remaster” label doesn’t always carry the weight of transformation. In a year when remakes and remasters are increasingly expected to reinvent, Reloaded settles for reintroducing. That decision leaves the game in a strange space: too old-school to feel modern, too polished to feel truly retro. Still, there’s value in that middle ground. Few games wear their era on their sleeve as proudly as Gears. The bombastic firefights, the chainsaw executions, the growling one-liners — all of it creates an experience that is undeniably of its time but still entertaining today. Reloaded isn’t a reinvention of the wheel, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes, it’s enough to just be reminded of why the wheel worked so well in the first place.

Score: 7 out of 10

Reviewed on Xbox Series X