Gears of War 4 marked a turning point for Microsoft’s classic franchise, with new studio The Coalition taking over franchise development duties. Its 2016 debut delivered a gorgeous but safe instalment in the series. Gears 5, by comparison, is a revelation in pretty much every regard. It’s an ambitious new take on the series, pushing gameplay into uncharted territory while delivering perhaps the most advanced and performant Unreal Engine 4 title to date – and something of a technological high point for both Xbox One consoles.
Of course, Gears is a series that has always been synonymous with pushing technical boundaries – from the very first Xbox 360 release through its various sequels, each game has served as a showcase for Unreal Engine and the skilled developers working on each project. Gears 5, however, delivers one of the greatest leaps in fidelity the series has experienced to date, with a wide range of impressive new visual features on offer alongside some serious optimisation, with Xbox One X targeting a massively ambitious 60 frames per second. With that in mind, the sheer level of detail on display in each area is staggering – especially when you consider the frame-rate and resolution targets.
So let’s begin with the basics, kicking off with image quality. In the case of Gears 5, the overall solution to rendering quality is a complex one, utilising a range of techniques that have become increasingly common this generation. Yes, dynamic resolution scaling is in effect on both console versions – albeit with a twist. As expected, X targets a native 4K at the upper bounds, while the base unit tops out at 1080p. That said, actual native rendering resolution is adjusting regularly during gameplay, producing results on X such as 1584p, 1728p, 2160p and the like. Xbox One S renders at quarter resolution by comparison – including values such as 792p and 864p up to full 1080p. The gap between S and X seems par for the course then, until you realise that the enhanced machine is essentially delivering twice the frame-rate.
However, native rendering resolution is just the start of the story. Gears 5 uses a temporal upscaling solution, increasing fidelity by drawing upon information from prior frames, so resolution values aren’t quite as cut and dried as you may think. View geometry is adjusted on the fly based on GPU load using dynamic resolution – this is then upscaled to match the final output such as 4K in the case of Xbox One X. It’s after this point that all post-processing such as motion blur, bloom, tone-mapping and the like is applied, not to mention the HUD. So, basically, geometry rendering varies in resolution but post-effects are always rendered at full resolution, giving an overall cleaner look.
Performance in campaign mode is generally sound on both systems – the S sticks very closely to a locked 30 frames per second and performs very closely to Gears 4, significantly improved over and any all Gears outings on Xbox 360. The X is something of a revelation, however. Overall, the game runs beautifully smoothly at 60 frames per second and with only mild dips to the mid-50s accompanied by a touch of screen-tearing at the top portion of the screen when the game is under load (perhaps an id-style ‘aggressive’ dynamic scaling option might help here?).