The Coalition finally released details of the all-new Horde 3.0 for Gears of War 4 earlier today. A major goal for this iteration of Horde was to make the mode more free-form, and to distance itself from the inflexibility of Horde in Gears 3. The trailer below highlights some of the major changes, including the new class system.
In Gears 4, players are now able to establish their base at any point on the map. The crate that you can see being carried around in the trailer is called the “Fabricator”, and players can place it in any spot they’d like to defend.
After the Fabricator is planted, fortifications like sentry turrets, barred wire, etc. can be freely placed as well. It’s unclear if there are any limitations to the number of fortifications that can be purchased or if they’re restricted to being placed within a certain distance from the Fabricator, but it seems like The Coalition wants to give players as much freedom as possible in how they come up with their strategies.
“You can try to exploit whatever you can think of,” lead multiplayer designer Ryan Cleven told Game Informer. “You can try to stack them on top of each other, you can build lots of one kind… you can do all sorts of different things to try to find the best way to manipulate the AI to achieve higher scores. We’re super excited to see what players can come up with.”
Also new to Horde are the classes: Sniper, Engineer, Soldier, Scout and Heavy. You can level up your class by fending off the Swarm, and players must choose which of the 10-11 available skills they want to have equipped as they progress. This is yet another example of a AAA console game borrowing ideas from the MOBA genre, although in a mode where killing mobs of enemies is the objective, it seems appropriate.
Experimenting with the different class set-ups, fortification placements and base locations could finally offer the deep strategy that Horde has lacked in its previous two versions. It seems like this might be the first Gears where completing all 50 waves on Insane is reasonably possible without some sort of glitch or exploit.
You can look forward to more details on Horde 3.0 emerging from PAX West this weekend, as well as a new multiplayer mode called Arms Race.
Gears of War 4 will release on October 11 for all, although pre-ordering via Xbox Live will get you access to the full game 4 days earlier.