Gears of War 3 Wishlist

With Gears of War 3 entering its final months of development, we've got a list of the most important tweaks and features we'd like to see in the series finale.

There are plenty of blockbusters coming this fall, like Halo: Reach, Gran Turismo 5, and CoD Black Ops, most of which are already done with development. But there is an impressive collection of games slated for early 2011 that are still in the later stages of development – the perfect time to make tweaks and minor additions. Which means that these 2011 titles are ripe for wishlists. So listen up Epic, these are some of the small (but important) features we expect from Gears of War 3.

1. Better Matchmaking

Even the hardcore fans of the Gears 2 competitive modes have to admit: there were flaws. One of the most noticeable problems was how long it took to set up and start a match. Finding a team seemed to take forever, even when the game had just launched, and there should have been plenty of candidates to choose from. There were times that we had to wait almost twenty minutes between the end of one match and the start of another, which is simply unacceptable. In an hour’s worth of playing, gamers could play about 8-10 Call of Duty matches, 5-6 Halo matches, or 3 Gears of War matches. Sorry Epic, I liked the competitive modes, but not enough to put up with that.

The other matchmaking issue was with how it formed teams. The game would first locate teammates of similar skill, then when a team was assembled, look for an opposing team of similar strength. This works fine when there are hundreds of available teams, but when the player base dwindles (as it did for Gears 2 after less than a year) problems arise. If only about a dozen people are playing a match type, like Guardian on original maps, for example, the system pairs up the lower half together since they are of similar skill. Having no other team to fight, they must then face the upper half of the players, resulting in a highly lopsided game. Why not find all ten players first, then split them in half evenly, like most online shooters?

2. Expanded Horde Mode

Horde was easily the best addition in Gears of War 2, and became the main time sink for many of the game’s fans. The success of the mode sparked an industry-wide wave of imitation, but Epic shouldn’t rest on its laurels. Many of the Dark Corners maps seemed designed with Horde in mind, but why not go all out and make a bunch of Horde-specific maps? Creating levels with intended central defense points and heavy artillery allows players to do what they love: blow the shit out of the Locust. Some high-powered Horde-only weapons would be cool, as would the ability to add bots for local Horde matches. Most of all, I hope the inclusion of a 4-player campaign means that split-screen for Horde and competitive modes will support four players as well.

3. More Boss Battles 

It may be getting late to add these in, but if the game doesn’t have a bunch of boss battles yet it needs them. With massive beasts like the Brumak, there’s no excuse for Gears not to have momentous battles like those seen in Metroid Prime or God of War. The previous entries involved these monsters, but we rarely got to pick them apart and bring them down in a true fight. Instead the designers opted for indirect kills (Berserkers, lambent Brumak), vehicle battles (Corpsers and others in 2) and riding the bosses (Reavers & Brumak in 2). With all of these creatures being mutated, there is an opportunity to create some gargantuan lambent bosses that would require teamwork and multiple stages to dismantle, like the famous Colossus of Rhodes battle.