Gears of War: Reloaded Is a Rare Moment of Console War Peace

Gears of War: Reloaded launched last week, offering a more polished, feature-complete version of the seminal original. The remaster’s overall quality is a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately, but the mechanical and visual changes from the base game are far from the most interesting aspects of Gears Reloaded.

Indeed, the most notable aspect of this long-rumored remaster is its presence on PlayStation 5, marking the first time in Gears series history that an entry has landed on a Sony console. This isn’t the first big Xbox exclusive to migrate to PlayStation in recent memory—Microsoft broke the seal with PS5 ports of Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, among other high-profile exclusives, back in 2024. But Gears of War: Reloaded is a different story, as it’s part of a franchise that has always been synonymous with the Xbox brand: behind Halo, it’s hard to imagine a series that’s more quintessentially “Xbox” than Gears of War. Through this lens—one positioned back in, say, 2008—Gears of War: Reloaded can be viewed as something of a marriage between the Xbox and Sony families, a moment of camaraderie and unity in the long-running console wars.

Gears of War: Reloaded Coming to PlayStation 5 Marks a Chapter of Cooperation for Microsoft and Sony

Gears of War: Reloaded On PS5 Is Heavy with Meaning

Again, Gears of War landing on PS5 is much more significant than ports like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment which, while two of Xbox's best-ever exclusives, aren't exactly system sellers; in its heyday, Gears of War was most definitely a system-seller. By bringing this new and improved rendition of the classic game to its biggest competitor, Xbox is effectively waving the white flag in the exclusives battle, making it clear that it won't try to compete with Sony on that front.

In a way, this has been a long time coming. As previously mentioned, Xbox has been slowly bringing many of its highest-profile exclusives to PlayStation and even some to the Nintendo Switch—something that would be baffling if the company intended to still compete with its first-party games. This, coupled with Microsoft's partnering with Asus for the new ROG Xbox Ally and the integration of Steam games into the Microsoft PC launcher, indicates that Xbox is shifting tack to become less about hardware exclusivity and more about the prominence of its software. How this will unfold as a business decision is hard to predict, but it's clear that games like Gears of War won't be locked behind a hardware wall any longer. This could alter the console market as audiences know it.

gears of war reloaded ps5 trailer — Gears of War Reloaded Ps5 trailer.

Of course, this isn't objectively positive: many Xbox loyalists have felt somewhat cheated by Microsoft's apparent abandoning of exclusivity.

What Does Gears of War: Reloaded Coming to PS5 Mean in the Long Run?

Naturally, it's impossible to know what the future holds, especially in an industry as volatile and unpredictable as this one, but it's unlikely that this period of peace in the "console wars" will be permanent. Microsoft bringing Gears of War: Reloaded to PlayStation might seem like a feeble concession, but no company of that size makes decisions like these purely for the sake of altruism. Whatever Xbox's long-term strategy is, it will likely still wish to compete with Sony, just not in terms of hardware.

If someone can play Xbox's biggest exclusives on PlayStation, then there's little reason to purchase an Xbox console. Microsoft no doubt understands this, and so it could be ramping up for a more aggressive push with its software, and it's difficult to say what that will look like. For now, Xbox and PlayStation fans can band together under the warmth of Gears of War: Reloaded, but there's no telling how long this fellowship will last.

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