For nearly 19 years, Xbox and PC players around the world have been enthralled by the groundbreaking third-person gameplay, dynamic narratives, and characters of theGears of Warfranchise. First debuting as an Xbox 360 exclusive in late 2006, theGears of Warfranchise has evolved to become one of Xbox’s landmark properties alongside fellow celebrated Xbox franchises such asHalo,Forza, andFable. Initially developed by Fortnite’s Epic Games and later spearheaded by Xbox Game Studios’ The Coalition,Gears of Warhas managed to stay relevant over two decades thanks to its ever-expanding lore and gameplay mechanics.
While theGearsseries hasn’t received many entries lately compared to its 360 days – its latest game,Gears Tactics,released five years ago–Gears of Warstill retains an active fan base eager for the next game, book, and upcoming film.Gears of Warmay even earn some new fans when it makes its first debut on PlayStation consoles with the upcoming release ofGears of War: Reloaded. WithGears of War: E-Dayexpected to debut in 2026 amid the franchise’s 20th anniversary, it’s a good time to assess and rank everyGears of Wargame by its story and gameplay features.
S-Tier Gears of War Games
The bestGears of Wargames are those that feature a perfect balance of an engrossing campaign, addictive online multiplayer, and engaging offline features that perfectly innovate on numerous aspects of pastGearstitles. This is best exemplified withGears of War 2,which improved on practically everything that madeGears of War 1great.Gears of War 2arguably still has the best campaignin the entire franchise thanks to heartbreaking character developments with Dominic Santiago, thrilling battle scenarios with an improved Locust Horde, and intriguing expansions on pre-established lore. On top of that,Gears of War 2introduced the groundbreaking PVE Horde Mode, which had up to five players fight endless waves of Locust and Sire combatants, resulting in several other games imitating the mode.
Gears of War 3built upon2’s advancements by featuring a campaign that perfectly resolved the Locust War, an updated Horde 2.0 that many still claim to be the best iteration of the mode, and an updated PVP multiplayer. On top of those developments,Gears of War 3was also the first to release a DLC campaign.Gears of War 3: RAAM’s Shadowhighlighted several fan-favorite side characters and allowed gamers to play as the Locust General RAAM in all his menacing glory.
WhileGears 5’s base campaign wasn’t as universally well-received asGears of War 2or3, its PVP multiplayer and Horde 4.0 greatly improved uponGears of War 4’s multiplayer offerings. It additionally featured the intriguingDLC campaignGears 5: Hivebusters.
A-Tier Gears of War Games
Gears of War’s mid-level games are those restricted by being the firstGearsgames produced by their respective developers. For as monumentalGears of War 1was for Xbox and third-person games overall, it doesn’t necessarily hold up too well against its successors due to a lack of gameplay variety, enemy diversity, and multiplayer offerings. The same could be said forGears of War 1’s first remasterand the firstGearsgame released by The Coalition,Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. However,Ultimate Editiondoes have a few more fun things than its predecessor, such as five previously PC-exclusive single-player chapters and digitized issues of Wildstorm and DC Comics’Gears of Warseries.
The Coalition’s first originalGearsgame,Gears of War 4, was a respectable reintroduction to the war-torn world of Sera following the well-received conclusion ofGears of War 3’s campaign. However, most ofGears of War 4’s campaign focuses on fighting rather unengaging DeeBee robots instead of the more horrifying and gameplay-diverse Swarm. On top of that,Gears of War 4’s Horde 3.0only featured DeeBees and Swarm as enemies, the only iteration of Horde to not include the Locust at all.Gears of War 4’s multiplayer was additionally absent of several fan-favorite gametypes, such as Beast mode. That said,Gears of War 4’s more horror-themed campaign, interesting expansions on COG, UIR, and Locust lore, and introduction of several new weapons made it a fun game overall.
B-Tier Gears of War Games
The worstGears of Wargames are those that deviated too much from franchise norms in terms of campaign, multiplayer, and gameplay offerings.2013’sGears of War: Judgment, while not a bad game in its own right, was held back by its self-contained, score-focused mission structure and relatively short campaign runtime.Judgmentwas additionally the firstGearsgame to not feature any playable Locust or alternate species in standard PVP multiplayer, and it was the first game sinceGears of War 2to not feature Horde Mode. Instead,Gears of War: Judgmentfeatured the class-based OverRun and Survival, which were fun but poor replacements for Horde or Beast.
WithGears of Warbeing a nearly 19-year-old franchise, it was inevitable forGearsto experiment with other game genres beyond its standard third-person gameplay. The franchise’s first excursion into other genres was arguably the worstGearsgame ever released, that being the2019 mobile real-time strategy gameGears Pop!Based on the popular bobbleheads of Funko,Gears Pop!was an odd diversion from Gears’ typical realistic and hardcore aesthetics and this odd use of theGearsproperty ultimately led to few people playing the game and subsequently resulted inGears Pop!shutting down in 2021. In contrast,Gears TacticsretainedGears’ classic art style and themes but was locked to the relatively niche turn-based tactics gameplay.
