Gears 5 Won’t Have Gear Packs or a Season Pass
By Rebecca Smith, 4 hours ago
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One of the more controversial aspects of Gears of War 4 were its Gear Packs. Players were especially frustrated about skill cards being locked behind luck-of-the-draw lootboxes while not being able to purchase the cosmetic content they specifically wanted. Meanwhile, many felt the Season Pass content was disappointing. The Coalition has moved to tackle these issues in Gears 5 by scrapping Gear Packs and the Season Pass for their upcoming title, instead making DLC maps free for everyone and allowing players to earn content through the Tour of Duty system.
Tour of Duty will present daily challenges for players to complete, as well as allowing them to rank up and earn seasonal Medals. As players do this, they’ll earn customisation items like character skins, and each item will clearly tell players what they need to do to earn it. The content and challenges in Tour of Duty will change each season, but none of this Tour of Duty content will ever be Premium pay-only content. Players will also be able to earn rewards through other methods like their placement on Escape or Versus leaderboards.
The closest the game gets to Gear Packs are its new Supply Drops. Every minute that players spend in a multiplayer match will count towards a Supply Drop. The drops include a random item from the Supply category of content. Duplicate cards are automatically turned into Scrap that players can then use to craft Supply items they do want. Neither Supply Drops or the content in them can be purchased with real money. Unfortunately, character skills still appear to be locked into the random item drops, so scrapping Gear Packs doesn’t particular solve that problem.
There will be some purchasable content, though. Gears 5 will have a premium currency called Iron, which can either be purchased with real money or be earned in small amounts through the Tour of Duty. There will be no lootboxes or random items here, though. All content will be purchased directly and “there will be no items in the store that provide a competitive advantage for real-money purchasers”… except for boosts, which will allow players to progress quicker for short period of time. Boosts will offer things like double Multiplayer XP, double Character XP in Escape and Horde, or doubled progress towards a Supply Drop. Boosts will last for periods like one real-world day, or seven real-world days, not in-game time.
Meanwhile, DLC maps will be free for all players in matchmaking and Private Play, so there won’t be a season pass or restricted access. Little else was said about this, but more information on the game has been promised before its release on September 10th, so stay tuned for more news as we get it.