They Finally Gave Him What He Wants
In a move that will at least partially satiate the legions of fans demanding Dave Bautista be cast in the recently announced Gears Of War movie, the former wrestler will now be an optional Marcus Fenix re-skin in the Gears 5 campaign for next-gen hardware. While a Batista skin has been available in Gears multiplayer for some time now, the New Game+ update will allow players to experience the entire story mode as The Animal, with all dialogue re-recorded by the wrestler-turned-Drax himself.
During an interview with IGN, Zoë Curnoe, the principal lead producer of Gears 5, said that Bautista’s increased role in the Gears universe came down to fan demand. “He had his fan campaign on Twitter, vying to be the star in the much talked about movie ideas and things like that, but this is a great way of delivering that to fans,” Curnoe said. “And of course he was super excited to participate when they did the skin for multiplayer. I think doing this in the campaign was just a natural evolution to say, ok, well the fans and him have said they want Batista as Marcus, so let’s actually make it happen.”
The New Game+ update will not only bring the big boi into the game but also introduce a litany of improvements including:
- Two new difficulty modes (Ironman and Inconceivable)
- Character Skins for Kait, Del, and JD
- Weapon Skins
- Jack upgrades carry over
- Mutators (Big head mode, etc)
- New achievements
The Gears 5 experience for Xbox Series X will also take advantage of a massive technical boost for the game, featuring 120 fps online PVP, 60fps cutscenes and lightning-fast loading times. These new updates will be available on launch day for the Xbox Series X/S, November 10th.
Towards the end of the year, Gears 5 will also be getting a new 3-5 hour long story DLC titled Hivebusters. The Hivebusters are a group of specialist Gears that allow themselves to get captured by The Swarm and then fight their way out. In the Gears 5 Escape mode, the default Hivebusters crew is made up of Keegan, Lahni, and Mac, so expect to see them in the new story content. The Hivebusters DLC will be available Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.