"Ok! Good meeting."
"Oh, it's not over."
"You two!"
"Grab the fabricator and follow me!"
"Carmine!"
It's been 10 years since
Marcus, Dom,
and the other members of Delta Squad
first shot and chainsawed their way
across the planet, Sera,
in a desperate attempt to defeat the Locust.
And in some ways,
both those characters and
the gameplay we so strongly associate with them
now feel like relics from another era.
Gears of War 4 seems to recognize this,
reinvigorating the series signature combat
without reinventing it;
and shifting the narrative focus
from Marcus and his buddies
to a younger generation,
who have grown up without the threat
of the Locust looming over them.
Unfortunately, Gears of War 4 still
plays it safe:
teasing us with the potential for a story
that could have taken the franchise
in a fascinating new direction --
before settling into yet another
simple and straightforward
fight against the Locust.
The result is a solid, competent shooter;
a decent game that could have been much better.
Gears 4 gets off to a promising start,
suggesting that the COG,
the Coalition of Ordered Governments,
that fought so valiantly for humanity
in the original games,
has become an oppressive, authoritarian force
in a post-Locust world.
The press conference that begins the game
shows us how the government-controlled media
glorifies the COG and its de facto leader,
First Minister Jinn --
presenting her as a noble figure,
with humanity's best interests at heart.
"It's a world of safety. Of family."
The reality of Jinn's politics turn out to be
more complicated, however,
as people are required by law to live in
fabricated cities;
and women are required to participate in post-war
repopulation efforts.
Kait, the squad's one female member,
understandably takes issue with this.
"You got an issue with babies?"
"No. I have an issue with being told
I need to have one."
And I'd hoped the game might explore
this idea some more.
But it's quickly dropped and never mentioned gain.
The game play also starts off strong,
before becoming more conventional
and expected.
As "Outsiders,"
humans who have chosen
to defy the government
and live in their own settlements,
the protagonists face off against
the COG's robot army
in the early sections of the game.
During these encounters,
the combat feels simultaneously
swift and hefty.
Spherical enemies called "trackers"
can be kicked away like soccer balls,
lending the combat a playful physicality.
And the spectacle of robots being dropped
into the environment by massive planes
flying overhead
makes these battles feel dramatic
and desperate.
It's also during these first few acts that
we see far more of Sera's natural beauty
than we ever have before.
But soon, the game retreats into
more standard and familiar territory.
All the interesting early concerns about
how the COG is misusing its
military and industrial power
go out the window,
when the game once again pits you against
the Locust,
in the sorts of grimy, industrial environments
that were so common in the original Gears games.
The Locust continue to be an enemy
with all the nuance of J.R.R. Tolkien's orcs;
they're seemingly an inherently hostile,
aggressive species that we can feel
justified in slaughtering without
any moral qualms whatsoever.
Still, the interpersonal dynamics within your squad
set Gears 4 apart a bit from its predecessors.
The central character, Marcus Fenix's son, JD,
isn't terribly interesting.
He's the sort of blandly likable protagonist
who might have been played by Chris Pratt
if this had been a movie --
and not the funny, quirky Chris Pratt,
more like the Jurassic World Chris Pratt.
But what is interesting is the difference between
Marcus and the younger members
of the squad.
Marcus is as gruff, grizzled, and crusty as ever;
but JD, Kait, and Del
bring a different kind of energy to Gears.
They're a bit more lighthearted than
the men of Delta Squad were --
joking and making wisecracks,
suggesting that they've grown up in
a more peaceful time
than the previous generation did.
"Looks like their ship just came in!"
Unfortunately, Del, the squad's
one black member,
doesn't get to do much of anything
but joke and make wisecracks.
"Uh, how can someone be terrible
at Rock Paper Scissors?"
"Easily. Because you always pick paper."
"...do I?"
JD, Marcus, and Kait all have the suggestion
of lives that extend beyond the battlefield.
But Del's character arc begins and ends
with being JD's warm, wisecracking buddy.
Meanwhile, Oscar, Kait's uncle,
is presented as reckless and drunk,
teetering over into being a racial stereotype.
"How about I call you hungover?"
[laughs]
"Oh, you got some tough, boy, don't you?"
"Uncle!"
It's also frustrating that the game employs
a standard damsel-in-distress device,
with Kate's mother, Reina,
who is introduced as a strong leader,
being reduced to a plot mechanism
when she's taken by the Locust early on.
Sure Marcus is also captured
for a brief period of time,
but it's not the same sort of overarching
plot motivator that Reina's capture is.
On the other hand,
Kait is presented as a capable,
and competent member of the team,
with Marcus and everyone else
treating her with respect and a sense of solidarity.
"We'll be right beside you."
Of course, not treating a female character terribly
is hardly something we should celebrate -
it's simply something we should expect.
And ultimately, Gears of War 4 is all about
giving us exactly what we expect:
nothing less and nothing more.
It's a solidly built machine that,
10 years after the release of the original game,
wants to convince us that this franchise
can still be relevant.
But if it's going to be relevant,
it needs to take some chances.
Gears 4 starts off suggesting that it
might take us to new places,
but then shies away from that.
And in the end,
it's yet another cover shooter
that centers the experiences of its
white male characters
and has us fighting the same straightforward
battles we've fought before.
It could have been
fun, and suprising, and special --
but in the end, it's content to just be
fun, and familiar, and predictable.