The original Gears of War on Xbox 360 has seen new improvements to its servers which is bringing back players in droves. The multiplayer servers and lobbies for Epic Games' Xbox 360 Gears of War trilogy have long been dormant as newer Coalition titles like Gears of War 4 and the most recent Gears 5 have taken the Gears multiplayer community into the future.

Xbox's popular third-person cover shooter franchise follows Call of Duty's recent footsteps in seeing the servers of older, long-dormant titles improved with a boost of revisiting players. Classic games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Black Ops 2, and Modern Warfare 2 (2009) among others have been seeing player counts soar for the first time in at least a decade thanks to efforts by Activision and Xbox to revitalize that golden age of Xbox 360 multiplayer gaming. These aged, yet beloved Call of Duty titles have even jumped to the top of Xbox's sales charts in recent days as a result of the matchmaking improvements, dominating newer sales behemoths such as Diablo 4, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022), and Hogwarts Legacy.



Now, Xbox is extending the love to its very own first-party blockbuster gore fest Gears of War. After well over a decade, fans of the original Gears of War's multiplayer suite can boot up the game to once again find healthily-populated lobbies of players reliving the heyday of the hit 2006 third-person cover shooter. Additionally, there are some reports that the matchmaking of both Epic Games sequels, Gears of War 2 and 3, have also been improved.

As the last mainline Xbox 360-era Gears title, Gears 3 has been able to maintain a slightly higher level of activity throughout the years than its two predecessors. Now that the multiplayer of all three classic Gears games seem to be up and running again, it'll be interesting to see if, like Call of Duty, the Gears trilogy will also climb up to the top of Xbox's sales chart. Though, the fact that all the Gears titles are readily available on Xbox Game Pass may likely dissuade many players from fully purchasing the titles outright. Coupled with the fact that the Call of Duty franchise has enjoyed decades of non-stop mainstream popularity and success, and it seems like this Gears multiplayer renaissance may not hit the sales heights of Call of Duty's.

Like with Call of Duty, this could be Xbox testing the waters for a Gears collection similar to that of Xbox's own Halo: The Master Chief Collection. While the original Gears got a remaster in 2015 by the name of Gear of War: Ultimate Edition, many fans of the franchise have been asking for Gears 2 and mainly Gears of War 3 to receive the same remaster treatment. That classic Gears trilogy getting bundled up in a collection for modern Xbox hardware would be great to see, especially ahead of the next Gears title The Coalition is surely cooking up.

Gears of War is available on Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Posted: Jul 28, 2023 12:43 am
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/gears-of-war-1-server-update-2023/