Gears Tactics just might end up as a great Gears game AND a great strategy game

Emergence is only two weeks away

Gears Tactics has a tough task ahead. It needs to be a good Gears game, be a good PC strategy game, and somehow prove that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Judging by this launch trailer, I’m inclined to believe that developer Splash Damage just might get the job done.

Even ignoring just how fun this trailer is — kudos to whoever made the call on constant big-ass pop-in text — Gears Tactics seems quite competent on all fronts. It appears to channel the nonstop action that defines traditional Gears as a boon to the XCOM-like formula. Executions adding action points is a suitably appropriate touch of Gears.

We’re also treated to a bit of the story that Gears Tactics tells. It takes place shortly after E-Day, when the human race was forced to call Hammer of Dawn strikes on its own cities to stop the Locust invasion. As the trailer bluntly puts it: “It didn’t work.” So, Sergeant Diaz (the father of Kate Diaz, who’s Gears 5‘s protagonist) leads a tactical operation to kill the Locust chief scientist, Ukkon. 

We’ll find out before the end of April how this unlikely combination of Gears and strategy ends up working out. Gears Tactics is due to launch on PC on April 28; it’s coming to Xbox One at an unannounced future date.