Developer The Coalition continues to pop out monthly updates for Gears of War 4, with the planned September drop less than two weeks away. And while bug fixes, new achievements, and two new maps are welcome additions, the big change will be switching away from region locked matchmaking.
The new Quality of Service matchmaking system will "match you on local data centers with players of similar connection quality more often, resulting in fairer and better quality matches every time you play," The Coalition Community Manager Liam Ashley said in a blog post on the Xbox Wire. In addition, the update will improve skill-based matchmaking to better pair you with players of similar skill. These changes will come with the launch of ranked Season 2 in mid-September.
Two new maps will drop with the update as well: Mercy, which is a rework of a classic map from Gears of War 3, and Harbor Haze, a modification to the Harbor map that will add fog and obscure visibility during daylight hours. The maps will be available in Public Matchmaking starting on September 12.
If you are into achievements, 20 new ones will be added that can get you up to 500G. These achievements are based on things that can happen in the first moments of the game, so many will get the bonus as soon as they log in after the patch update if they have met the requirements.
Ashley also offered some details on content coming through 2018, including:
- An Xbox One X Enhanced Update, featuring support for 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos, and new graphical enhancements.
- New Gear Packs containing characters and weapon skins to add to your collection.
- Monthly Versus and Horde events with exclusive challenge-based rewards.
- Major Seasonal events like "11 Years of Gears," "Gearsmas" and "Thanksgibbing."
- Ranked Seasons with skill placement rewards.
- Gears of War Esports Season 2 kicks off with the Mexico City Open on October 13, so mark your calendars and catch up on all the event information here.
- Continual balancing improvements to Versus and Horde.
- Refinements to Casual mode in Campaign with increased player health and damage dealt.
- New achievements.
Finally, if you haven"t played Gears of War 4 yet, The Coalition and Microsoft will be relaunching the 10-hour Game Trial for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC players on September 14. More details are expected as it gets closer to release.
Source: Xbox Wire
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