The latest from developer Platinum Games (best known for the Bayonetta series) is the Nintendo Switch exclusive Astral Chain. It shares a lot of similarities to its stylish-action relatives, but Astral Chain separates itself with a unique, thrilling combat system–you control a player-character and a Legion simultaneously. This makes for some incredible fights, and it’ll take some time to wrap your head around all its intricacies. There are systems layered on top of the tandem chaos, like Ability Codes and a skill tree to upgrade for new attacks, and we’ll point out some key things to pay attention to.
While we’ll help you with some basics to keep in mind during battle, there’s a lot more to the game than combat. Within segmented story chapters, you’ll explore semi-open hub areas side missions, investigations, and other optional content. Primary objectives are fairly straight-forward, but to get the most out of Astral Chain, you’ll need to do some poking and prodding to reveal hidden quests.
Not All Quests Appear On The Map
IRIS Is Your Best Friend
Accessing Ladders
Understanding The Chip..er…Ability Code System
Premium Material Codes Are A Premium
The Quirks Of Dodging
Don’t Get High On Your Own Supply
Red Matter Boosts Legion Energy Past Max
Rank Doesn’t Account For Damage, But Style
Listen For Meowing, Save Cats If Pawssible
Put Up Your Blue Shield
The Power Of Two Legions
Beast Legion’s Auto Dodge And More
Experiment With Legion Abilities
Astral Chain is out now, and chances are if you’re looking through this compilation of tips, you’re already set on playing the game. But if you’re interested in reading some detailed thoughts on the game, be sure to read my Astral Chain review, or check out my breakdown of how long Astral Chain takes to beat. For more advanced pointers, read through (or watch) our compilation of in-depth Astral Chain combat tips.
If you’re running an Nvidia GPU you should consider a G-Sync monitor for more fluid gaming. They can be a bit pricey, so here’s our rundown of the best cheap G-Sync monitors.
Gears 5 represents something of a change for the shooter series in that its campaign mode features levels that are “more open and expansive.” That’s according to The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson, who explained to GameSpot that while Gears 5’s levels will be larger, the studio isn’t aiming for a true open-world experience that’s similar to what you might find in the Red Dead and Far Cry franchises.
Some people who worked on Gears 5 previously developed open-world games in the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry franchises. They’ve taken those learnings to Gears 5, but the game is doing something different.
“We just knew that we weren’t trying to be another Red Dead or Far Cry or Ghost Recon,” Fergusson said. “We were just saying, ‘How can we take Gears and make it feel more open and expansive without trying to go toe-to-toe with Ubisoft?’ Because that’s not really what this game is. We just wanted to take inspiration from genres we love to give a bit more freedom and that idea of player choice.”
Making Gears 5 less linear than previous Gears of War games has been “one of our biggest challenges,” Fergusson said. That’s in part because of the unique dynamic of The Coalition.
The studio took over development on the Gears of War series after Microsoft bought the franchise from Epic. The team made its first brand-new game, Gears of War 4, which was more linear. With Gears 5, the studio ramped up its ambition further, and this wasn’t easy.
“The unfortunate part is once you figure something out, you have to go down to where you truly understand it,” he said. “So we had a team that didn’t make Gears before, so we made Gears 4. We were feeling pretty confident. ‘Okay, we know how to to make a Gears game, we know to do all this stuff,’ and then this little thing called ambition gets in the way and you start creating new ideas that nobody has a clue how to do necessarily. And it makes an interesting challenge again.”
Gears 5 also differs from previous Gears of War games in that it has some light RPG systems that provide branching narrative experiences. However, Gears 5 is not an RPG at heart. In playing a section of the campaign, GameSpot’s Mat Paget speaks about how Gears 5 still feels like a traditional gun- and action-heavy Gears of War game.
Looking ahead to the future, Fergusson said he struggles to see how The Coalition can top itself with a potential Gears 6 in terms of size and scale. Not only that, it seemingly remains to be seen if future games–which have not been announced–will continue to include new elements like larger levels and RPG elements.
“I have trouble imagining a bigger game than Gears 5,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see how people react to some of the changes. I don’t know how people will react to the RPG-ness, how people will react to the larger levels … “
The Gears of War series is known for a specific pace of combat. The cover-based mechanics helped revolutionize shooters, but Gears 5 is taking a very different approach inspired more by open-world shooters. In an interview with GameSpot, studio head Rod Fergusson explained how the studio took notes from another game he worked on, BioShock Infinite.
“We were saying we want to challenge expectations of player choice,” Fergusson said. “What are ways that we can give the player more choice? And so one way is player-initiated combat. I learned that lesson from Bioshock Infinite. And so, the idea that there are battles that the swarm are just kind of meandering around and whatever, and you get to look around and see that there’s a weapon over there or there’s a flank point there or a sniper over there, and then what are the tools I have in Jack that I can sort of use to overcome the situation? We wanted to allow you that moment to take it in and decide how you wanted to play it out.”
Fergusson went on to explain that introducing enemies with health bars helps more clearly signal to the player how aggressive they can be, as compared with past Gears games, and the RPG elements and upgrades help add more variety to combat.
“What are the ways that people are going to play? We didn’t want there to be one where you would just fill up all the upgrades, and at the end, everybody plays the same,” he said. “That’s why we didn’t do the tech tree thing. We wanted people to be like, ‘Oh, I want to invest in this thing’ or ‘This is the way that I like to play. I like stealth, so I want to do this,’ or ‘I don’t like stealth, I like this.'”
Gears 5 makes a number of big changes to the series with its new hero, Kait, along with bigger levels and some RPG elements. These ideas came from developer The Coalition, but how did Microsoft feel about these changes? “They actually don’t have any creative input at all,” The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson told GameSpot in a recent interview.
According to Fergusson, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty and overall Xbox boss Phil Spencer put a lot of trust in their studio heads to manage their own projects.
“It’s really about trusting the studio heads and the teams there to recognize what’s the best way to leverage whatever it is they’re building,” he said. “Matt has a great line around just building great games. It’s just the notion of don’t worry about business models, don’t worry about subscriptions, don’t worry about changing things to adopt to a particular strategy. If you make an awesome game, then we can take that awesome game and apply it to different strategies.”
The first and most important rule is to “make a great game and focus on quality of execution,” Fergusson said. “We say what we do and we do what we say, and when we say we’re going to deliver you a game, we deliver you a game, and we do it at the highest quality we can.”
Fergusson said creative decisions shouldn’t be made from higher-ups on the top-down model. “I think the strength of the bottom-up way we’re doing things now allows for each studio to have its own identity and to be creative–the top-down stuff doesn’t work,” he said. “And we saw that I think. I was part of the Gears of War Kinect game that never saw the light of day, and that was okay. How do we force something to be on strategy? And now the strategy is to make awesome games and then we’ll figure it out.”
The business models at Xbox have indeed changed since Gears of War 4 came out. All of Microsoft’s first-party games–including Gears 5–launch into Xbox Game Pass for no extra cost. Microsoft hasn’t said how this change has impacted developers; some have wondered how royalty payments and other sales-related metrics change in this new model. Those specifics remain unknown.
Whatever the case, Fergusson said he’s focused on growing the Gears of War franchise to get it back to where it was during its heyday when it was developed by Epic Games. (Microsoft bought the Gears of War franchise from Epic in 2014 for an undisclosed sum).
“We looked at it like this: okay, Epic put Gears of War on a shelf and said, ‘We’ll never make it again.’ So when Microsoft bought Gears, I was really excited about the fact that we can actually see where this is capable of going,” Fergusson said. “And then sort of parallel to what Microsoft was doing, we wanted to expand the audience and the reach of the Gears of War brand. So how do we go back to what it was in its heyday?”
Studio head Rod Fergusson has discussed the one time he chose to pull rank and put his foot down on a creative decision. Surprisingly, it was to ensure the survival of protagonist Kait Diaz’s hat in Gears of War 4.
In an interview with GameSpot, Fergusson and franchise narrative lead Bonnie Jean Mah revealed that they were the lone hat advocates at the studio. And he used the hat to illustrate a related point, about how skeptical the studio was of the Skiff vehicle segment.
“It was a battle,” Fergusson said. “It was literally a battle, much like Kait’s hat. So in Gears 4, we had the beret on Kait, and almost everybody hated it.”
“I liked the hat,” Jean Mah interjected.
“I mean, you and I liked the hat,” he continued. “We essentially had to fight really hard to keep Kait’s hat. It was one of those things where I was like, ‘Look, I don’t pull rank very often, but we’re keeping the hat.'”
He went on to explain that the Skiff was a battle too, and that it sprung out of his desire to do a sailing simulator. The team kept hitting engineering challenges to make a wind-based vehicle, but he was steadfast that they couldn’t change it.
“The number of times that engineers came up to me and said, ‘Can’t we just make it a dirt bike? Can we not make it a Jeep? Please, God, let it be a monster truck.’ And I’m like, ‘Nope, it’s a weird sailing thing that you ride on the back of.’ You’re kind of parasailing or wakeboarding off the back of this thing. And so, there was a number of times where people were trying to rebel against it, and it felt like it was an opportunity to do something really cool and ownable, and at the end of the day I think where we landed, much like Kait’s hat, was that it turned out really awesome and I think it is a unique sort of differentiator for us.”
Tragically, her hat appears to be nowhere to be seen in Gears 5. For more on the next Gears, check out our hands-on campaign and Horde Mode impressions. Gears 5 launches on September 10 on Xbox One. Early access for Ultimate Edition buyers or subscribers to Game Pass Ultimate will start on September 6.
Gears 5 brings back the series’ popular Horde mode but shakes things up with what developer The Coalition calls “Hero characters.” Gears of War 4 had character classes in its Horde mode, but they didn’t feel distinct from one another. This time, however, The Coalition has given characters their own unique ability cards and Ultimate to make them stand apart from each other. Some of these simply act as a great way to deal a bunch of damage, while others work in conjunction with each other to each become more effective–like Marcus’s instant headshots (and AOE buff that spreads to nearby allies) paired with Fahz’s ability to see and shoot through walls.
Despite these distinguishing traits, the vast majority of characters are still going to play like a Gears of War character. This isn’t a bad thing because playing Horde mode as Marcus Fenix, The Terminator’s Sarah Connor, or any other gun-toting character, is a ton of fun in Gears 5. And with the new adjustable difficulty, which increases your rewards for every modifier you flip on, there’s plenty to challenge yourself with. That said, The Coalition created a brand new type of character for Gears 5, repurposing the campaign’s drone assistant Jack as a support character in the same vein as Mercy from Overwatch.
I recently played as Jack for nearly 30 rounds of Horde mode, and in that time I got the hang of what a good Jack player is responsible for and should focus on. Healing your teammates and making sure they’re safe is the obvious priority, and with the various turrets, decoys, and traps that players can construct, keeping these contraptions repaired and full of ammo is also paramount to success. However, I wasn’t just babysitting my team the entire time. Jack can be impactful individually and is often the most important character on the battlefield, able to turn the tides of defeat and get his team back in the fight.
A great example of Jack’s importance came up when I spoke to lead multiplayer producer Otto Ottosson. We spoke about Jack and his different utilities in Horde mode, when Ottosson, who told me he’ll take any chance to play a good support class, mentioned that he mains Jack.
“I’ve had moments where the team is all down, and they’ve even been killed,” Ottosson recalled. “Jack has this cloak ability … but if he gets too close to the enemy he de-cloaks. They become aware of him. So I was going around, picking up their COG tags, and trying to find my way around as the enemy can’t see me to get to the fabricator and spawn them back in. It’s very different from any other character you play in Gears.”
And it’s true. Playing Jack in Horde mode almost turns it into a stealth game. Whenever you’re not performing an action or speedboosting, you’re cloaked. This lets you do things like sneak up on a particularly bothersome baddie and shock them with your zapper, freezing them in place and dealing a small amount of damage. You’re not going to take on an entire army by yourself, but utilizing Jack’s zapper and communicating with your team can mean the difference between success and defeat. Shocking an enemy to prevent them from destroying your team’s meticulously placed turrets and then calling over a teammate to help you defeat them is one facet of Jack that makes for a satisfying new way to experience Horde mode.
Jack’s innate stealth abilities also help in support situations. At one point in our match, one of our teammates was grabbed by a Snatcher and pulled away from us. A group of Swarm soldiers stood between us and the Snatcher, but as Jack, I was able to sneak my way up to the Snatcher and shock him until he let go of our teammate. It’s moments like this that made me feel like the MVP of our match, and I never fired a gun… at least, not as Jack himself.
Jack’s Ultimate is carried over from one of his abilities in the campaign. In Gears 5’s story, you can send Jack to use Highjack on an enemy, which turns them against their Spawn brethren to help you for a short period of time. This works similarly in Horde mode, except when you actually trigger the ability on a specific monster, you take control of them yourself. The enemies aren’t particularly interesting to control, as they’re mostly all just big, lumbering creatures, but if you hijack the right one at the right time, you can devastate the current enemy wave. I was able to hijack a rocket salvo-carrying DeeBee and completely obliterate the Swarm soldiers running ahead of me. It was extremely satisfying. You aren’t able to pull this off every wave, but when you can, it’s an incredible change of pace.
The focus on Hero characters with unique abilities and Ultimates is an interesting direction to take Gears’ Horde mode. The abilities and Ultimates seem to deliver another layer of teamwork that incentivizes working together and coordinating your attack. Jack is the cherry on top, serving as Gears’ first true support character, a stark contrast to the guns-blazing action that the series is so well known for. I think Jack could be a great way to bring new types of players into Horde mode. It’ll be interesting to see how players take to him and how he evolves as you level up and get new ability cards.
Thankfully, Gears 5 is expected to receive quite a bit of support for its multiplayer modes, Horde included. Multiplayer design director Ryan Cleven told me that Gears’ map builder is coming to Horde, in addition to new characters. There are also plans for big multiplayer expansions every three months, including a completely free progression system called Tour of Duty, which works similarly to a battle pass.
To learn more about Gears 5, how it handles microtransactions, and more, check out our articles below:
Xbox Game Pass players and Ultimate Edition owners will be able to jump into Gears 5 in a week, with full access to all of its multiplayer modes. We already know about the return of Horde and Versus, and the introduction of the new Escape mode. Multiplayer design director Ryan Cleven recently assured players that its monetization would be “player-friendly,” and after speaking to Cleven myself, we know exactly how it’s all going to work.
Cleven told me Gears 5 will not feature real-money loot boxes or any kind of randomized packs. The only microtransactions in the game will be relegated to their own store and won’t affect gameplay in any way. Things like premium cosmetics and DLC characters–like the playable Halo Reach characters–are expected items. You’ll pay for these items directly, so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting for your money.
You also won’t be able to purchase items you can earn for free with real money, eliminating the “Pay Us Now, Get It Sooner” mentality of some microtransaction-laden games. I was told that the ideology behind Gears 5’s progression was achievement-based–not Xbox achievements, but instead the challenges and feats you perform in gameplay.
This is where Gears 5’s Tour of Duty comes in. It’s a battle pass-style system that you can work your way through by completing challenges and collecting items as you level up. The big difference between Tour of Duty and battle passes in games like Fortnite, however, is that it’s completely free. Cleven told me that it was important to The Coalition to provide it for free as part of the $60 AAA game experience.
Cleven also said that the plan for Gears 5 is to release sizable multiplayer expansions every three months. These will include new content, characters, and more and sound a lot like the season system you see in many modern multiplayer games. One of the things players can expect is the map builder coming to Horde mode.
Gears 5 releases for Xbox Game Pass subscribers and Ultimate Edition owners on September 6, while its official launch is four days later on September 10.
To learn more about Gears 5, how its campaign tackles open environments and RPG elements, and more, check out our articles below:
Gears 5‘s campaign has been a bit of a mystery since its announcement in 2018. There were hints of changes to the Gears formula, but we never got a good, solid idea of exactly what those might be. Developer The Coalition has kept the campaign close to its chest almost right up to Gears 5’s launch, but now that I’ve spent about five hours with it, I’m glad to say I was pleasantly surprised. I never expected I’d explore open environments, complete side missions, upgrade special abilities, and stealth-kill my way through entire encounters in a Gears game. These aren’t unfamiliar activities in video games, but for the Gears of War series, it is brand-new territory. These changes may sound like an attempt to reinvent the decade-old series, but Gears 5 is more of an evolution.
My time with Gears 5 was split between Act II and Act III, covering two vastly different open areas: a snow-blanketed mountain valley and a scarlet desert. It all started in typical Gears fashion: main characters Kait and Del fighting their way through a linear, cinematic mission, set in a village under attack by the Swarm. This all felt good and familiar, something series fans will feel right at home with. However, shortly after the final Swarm soldier hit the ground, I was introduced to the game’s first open world and the vehicle I’d use to roam it, the wind-driven Skiff.
Despite this new direction for the series, The Coalition was hesitant to call Gears 5 an open-world game. The open areas are big–director Rod Fergusson told me that in some cases, they were 50 times larger than the average Gears level. However, The Coalition isn’t trying to fit Gears into a Grand Theft Auto-style mould; it’s creating environments that fit the Gears mould and serve as open spaces that connect each mission and side area.
During my time with the game, an objective marker was always present to point me towards the next story mission; however, I was told that the story would branch at certain points and things wouldn’t necessarily have to be completed in order. You also don’t have to head straight for the next story mission, as there are quite a few points of interest to discover in the world. I found the area for my first side mission, an abandoned train tunnel, thanks to my in-game partner Del pointing it out as we drove past it. Gears 5 doesn’t really draw attention to the fact that it’s set in an open environment, and so it took me a moment to realize I wasn’t locked into doing the main mission. What tipped me off to my freedom was one of the story missions in the second act’s mountains.
It tasked me with getting into a tower and scanning for a specific signal. I scanned several before finding the one we were looking for; however, each of the signals I decoded were locations for new points of interest. Yes, it was that kind of tower–thankfully, you don’t have to climb it a la Assassin’s Creed. I didn’t get to spend enough time with the game to see exactly how reliant the open environments are on these towers (I only ever found the aforementioned one during that story mission), but I was able to discover a couple side missions on my own while exploring the world. I hope the full game doesn’t lean too hard on towers because having Del point out specific things in the environment as you drive near them was a much more enjoyable way of discovering the world.
However, during my time with Gears 5, there wasn’t much going on in the environments outside of visiting new areas. I didn’t experience any random encounters with patrolling enemies or characters of any kind. The only things I found in the environments were the occasional abandoned building, hiding a special Relic weapon. However, the two areas I saw were fun to roam, thanks to the Skiff. The Skiff is basically a sled with a big sail attached to it. You won’t have to pay attention to the wind’s direction or speed to get around, as it controls similarly to how a car would in any other game: Right Trigger to accelerate, Left Trigger to stop, and the left analog stick to steer. Despite the similarities in control, it does feel distinct from a gas-powered vehicle.
Fergusson told me the team hit some difficulties trying to nail the feeling of controlling a sail-equipped sled, with some on the team even asking if they could switch to the more obvious choice for Gears: a big ol’ truck. The team persevered, and it definitely seems like it was the right choice. It felt great taking sharp turns, skidding, and getting air. I probably could have snuck in a couple more side missions if I had spent less time aimlessly driving around, trying to get the Skiff to tip over. It’s hard to say whether the appeal of driving it from place to place will carry throughout the entire game, as the only thing to do between destinations was listen to Kait and Del’s conversations. The two of them have great chemistry and were a joy to listen to, but if there isn’t anything to surprise you in these open environments, the journey from place to place could become a chore.
Thankfully, this is still Gears of War, so every mission–regardless of whether it’s a part of the main story or a side mission–showcases the classic Gears style of weighty, cover-based shooting. In past games, you would enter a room and every enemy would be aware of you. In Gears 5, the player almost always initiates combat. This means you can survey an area, see what you have to work with, and engage when you’re ready. And yes, this also means you can take out enemies undetected–there’s no stealth mode or crouching, but if you’re careful you can get away without being spotted. Gears 5 gives players quite a bit of choice for how they want to approach situations. In one section, I took out every enemy with carefully planned stealth kills–it seems like you can even get away with some cautious sniper rifle kills and grenade tosses if no one is left alive to notice them. In another, I set up a trap and got an enemy to chase me through it, electrocuting them and allowing me to finish them off with little worry. And lastly, in my personal favourite moment, I shot the ice out from under a bunch of Swarm soldiers’ feet, plunging them into the deadly, ice-cold water below.
While you have more options than previous games, combat in Gears 5 never felt like The Coalition was turning the series into Deus Ex or Dishonored. These combat arenas could have felt at home in any previous game in the series, and despite the removal of “War” from its title, you won’t be able to play through Gears 5 non-lethally. Every encounter still feels like the combat puzzles that Gears is loved for; you just have more options at your disposal. While the environment definitely plays a part, most of these options come in the form of the series’ good ol’ drone buddy Jack, who gets reintroduced after being absent in the last game.
This time, Jack is a character that is directly involved with combat and can even be controlled by a third player in co-op. He has three types of abilities: Assault, Support, and Passive. Assault options include blinding your enemies out of cover, setting up shock traps to prevent flanking, and temporarily hijacking an enemy to have them fight on your side. Support options, on the other hand, allow you to temporarily boost your health, scan the area for enemies, and cloak yourself to sneak around unnoticed. Jack can also be used to fetch ammo and guns, as well as revive downed teammates. These Passive abilities can be upgraded to be more effective.
I got a chance to play Jack in Gears 5’s Horde mode, and while they’re an interesting support hero in a wave-based survival setting, I can’t see it being compelling enough for experienced players to play through the campaign as him–though he may serve as a great starting point for less experienced players. Thankfully, whether you’re playing as Kait or Del, Jack is incredibly useful and exciting as a support character. He added a depth to the combat that made me feel much less confined to the safety of my cover. As someone who hasn’t always been comfortable flanking enemies in fear of getting rushed myself, the Stim ability empowered me to play more aggressively. And being able to cloak myself and complete small-scale encounters undetected was a strange and satisfying contrast to Gears’ traditional in-your-face action. Gears 5 is still very much Gears, however, and in most situations, I wasn’t able to get very far with stealth before a Swarm soldier spotted me and the real battle started.
Upgrading Jack requires components, which are often found by completing side missions. This usually means increasing the duration of certain effects, but every now and then, I came across an Ultimate Upgrade that added a new dynamic to one of his abilities. Support abilities were given new Assault-based utility in the form of increased damage to scanned enemies or three times the melee damage while the Stim ability is active. You’re also able to respec Jack at any time for no cost, so you can refocus his abilities to better fit your newfound upgrades. This alleviated my skill-tree allocation anxiety and made me feel good about going in whatever direction I felt was right at the time. I was able to experiment with several different ability configurations over the course of my five hours. It feels strange to talk about the experimentation of different abilities and approaches to combat in a Gears game, but I’m very glad to be doing so. I hope there’s more for me to find and be surprised by in the full game.
Gears 5 is doing things that make me excited to play the final game. The freedom to choose how I approach encounters and Jack’s multiple abilities feel like refreshing additions to Gears’ third-person action. I hope there are a lot more opportunities for combat experimentation that I haven’t discovered yet, as finding out I could shoot out a frozen pond’s icy surface was awesome. Of course, my reservations about the open world remain, but the cordoned-off areas will remain tense and exciting as long as they keep up the great level and combat design I saw in my preview. The changes and additions excite me as a Gears fan, and I’m hoping that roaming the landscape and discovering new locations remains engaging past those five hours.
To learn more about Gears 5, how it handles microtransactions, and more, check out our articles below:
