Xbox and PC players will soon be able to fight on the war-torn planet of Sera once more in the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day. Here, players will return to the beginning of the Locust War and witness the first time the Locust Horde invaded the surface and dominated both the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) and Union of Independent Republics (UIR) remnants on Emergence Day. While fans will be able to embody the iconic duo of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago once again in the campaign, it’s currently unknown how Gears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer will operate. However, The Coalition could use E-Day’s prequel setting and the Locust’s more horrifying nature to make this iteration of Horde Mode the best seen yet.
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The History of Gears of War’s Horde Modes
Despite featuring a wide variety of Locust enemies in the main campaign, 2006’s Gears of War 1 did not feature a PVE mode. Instead, gamers could play in various PVP modes with one team playing as the COG and another playing Locust. With 2008’s Gears of War 2 introducing several new enemy types, including the Kantuses, Sires, and Tickers, as the COG became more desperate, Epic Games sought to capitalize on these events by introducing the PVE Horde mode. Here, up to five players would have to survive wave after wave of increasingly difficult Locust forces to try and see who can last the longest. The popularity of Horde Mode led to several other games creating similar game types, such as Halo’s Firefight.
With 2011’s Gears of War 3 being Epic Games’ final mainline Gears game, the developers made sure to improve upon Horde mode in almost every way. Instead of simply trying to survive each wave, Horde 2.0 allowed players to earn points to purchase new weapons, defense upgrades, and powerful ordinances. Additionally, every tenth round will be a boss round featuring tough-to-kill enemies such as Brumaks, Berserkers, and Corpsers. Challenges would appear, rewarding players with extra points or powerful weapons as long as they complete certain parameters, such as killing seven enemies with a turret. Players could also toggle special game-altering mutators which can make Horde more difficult or fun, such as No Ammo Pickups or Laugh Track, which played a sitcom-esque laugh track after every kill.
The Coalition’s Horde Modes Explained
Gears of War 4’s Horde 3.0 builds off the developments made in 2.0 but tweaks them a bit. Boss battles and defense-building return, but everything was tied to the fabricator. To build new defenses and weapons, players had to collect energy from downed enemies and deposit it into the fabricator. Players could also select from five classes to play in Horde, each with their own unique abilities and equippable skills. Gears 5’s Horde 4.0 continued using the fabricator but introduced four major classes, each with its own subclasses that are restricted to certain characters and required to use specific weaponry. Previous unlockable equipment such as mounted turrets and the silverback exo-suit are further restricted to specific classes such as the Pilot class.
2013’s Gears of War: Judgment did not feature a Horde mode but instead a similar class-focused mode called Survival.
Gears of War: E-Day’s Horde 5.0 Potential
Since Gears of War: E-Day will be a prequel, The Coalition could use this opportunity to feature a Horde mode that gets back to basics. However, instead of being a true reversion to the original Horde mode seen in Gears of War 2, E-Day’s Horde mode could be more similar to Gears of War 3’s, since many fans consider that version to be the best of the four iterations. It would also be appropriate for E-Day’s version of Horde to mirror Gears of War 3’s, as that was the last game to feature the Locust Horde in their entirety in that game mode. Horde 3.0 featured the DeeBees and Swarm, while Horde 4.0 featured DeeBees, Swarm, Locust, and Lambent but only primarily Drones of the latter two.
While Gears of War: E-Day is set 14 years before Gears of War 1, it can still feature every major member of the Locust Horde, such as Drones, Kantuses, Boomers, Wretches, Corpsers, Serapedes, Berserkers, Brumaks, Bloodmounts, Reavers, Tickers, and Ragers. It could even feature potential new Locust troops and creatures introduced in and presumably annihilated in E-Day, similar to the Ragers’ fate in Gears of War: Judgment. These new troops and creatures could make up for the lack of a third faction, such as the Lambent, Swarm, or DeeBees. If the UIR plays a role in E-Day’s early campaign, UIR troops could appear in Horde 5.0 to fill the third faction role.
A More Intense Horde 5.0 in Gears of War: E-Day
With the Locust intended to appear in a more horrifying way than ever seen before in Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition could make Horde 5.0 the most intense iteration of the game mode. Based on how Creative Director Matt Searcy described E-Day’s Locust as monstrous, common Locust Drones could be stronger, more viscous, and faster than prior versions, making Horde waves increasingly stressful. This could encourage players to move about maps more and engage in cooperative scenarios to survive the new monstrous Locust Horde. Boss battles may additionally be more intense and difficult to survive, with these new Locust designs requiring players to focus on improving their defenses or acquiring powerful weapons to survive as a team.
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