2013 ended up being the year of the swansong for Xbox 360, with fantastic titles like Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and, believe it or not, Grand Theft Auto V debuting on the system in its final year.
Exclusively, however, things dried up a bit before the Xbox One arrived in November 2013. Forza Horizon was released the year before, as was Halo 4, but 2013 was a quiet year for games. Xbox. Well, except for Gears of War: Judgment, of course.
Yes, Epic Games (along with co-developer People Can Fly) released this Gears of War spin-off 10 years ago today and its arrival is still remembered a decade later. A Gears prequel based on the tech that built Gears of War 3, what could go wrong? Well, kind of as it turns out.
Now, we don’t want to turn this into a Soapbox rant because Gears Judgment had some upsides (as pointed out by our 10-year-old review, which focused entirely on a single player). The class-based Overrun mode was a lot of fun, and the People Can Fly campaign wasn’t bad either, all things considered, though it still fell short of the original trilogy.
Image: Gears of War Judgment’s motley crew
This is the game’s main multiplayer mode that we struggled with the most. Delete waking states? Get rid of the Locust in multiplayer? Throwing with about four main cards? To say Gears Judgment’s multiplayer was half-baked is a gross understatement, and aside from the aforementioned Overrun mode, Epic is clearly out of ideas for Gears of War.
When Microsoft stepped in and acquired Gears IP the following year, we were relieved to be quite honest. While we don’t know what the future holds for the series, we were happy that a new team had the chance to breathe new life into the franchise.
Of course, since then The Coalition has done a great job with Gears of War, especially Gears 5, which is a fantastic entry in the series in our opinion. In fact, thinking about Judgment made us realize how good a job the Coalition has done so far.
However, we wonder how many You Have you played that unfortunate Gears of War game? Did you struggle with him the same way we did, or do you have really fond memories of Judgment?
Let us know in the comments below. Oh and happy 10th anniversary Gears of War Judgment, you made us realize how awesome Gears 3 is!