Gears of War 4 Microtransactions Detailed
They say the only sure thing in life is death and taxes but we have it on good authority that it also applies to microtransactions in multiplayer AAA games. Whether it’s cosmetics or pay-to-win (which is the worst) it has become a staple in games of this era. Now, via a blog post on the official Gears of War site, we can confirm that there will indeed be microtransactions in Gears of War 4 but it may not be as bad as you think.
The Coalition has stated they will be using a card system to handle progression in the game. The cards will be found by opening packs and will range from common to legendary with the higher end cards obviously being the rarest of the bunch. The Coalition was also very quick to point out that none of the cards would provide a competitive advantage in versus multiplayer with only the cosmetics and bounties applied during PvP matches. The types of cards available are as follows:
- Characters – A Character to use in Horde or Versus. These include new characters to play as on the battlefield and special customized versions of the characters in Gears of War 4.
- Weapon Skins – Stand out from the crowd by customizing your weapons. Each weapon skin card unlocks a skin for a particular weapon. In a first for the Gears of War franchise, you can now customize Power Weapons to change their look when acquired from a spawn point on the battlefield!
- Emblems – Customize your player identity in Gears of War 4. Emblems show behind your username in lobbies and scoreboards.
- Bounties – Versus and Horde Bounties provide challenges, such as getting 7 kills in a single match of Team Deathmatch, and provide XP or Credit rewards upon completion. Bounties are only consumed once successfully completed, so you can attempt them as many times as you need until you conquer their challenge.
- Horde Equipment and Abilities – They will reveal more on Equipment and Abilities when they talk about Horde in detail in the coming months. Stay tuned!
The primary way players will acquire cards is through Gear Packs and this is where the microtransactions come into play. While Gear Packs may be purchased via Credits, which are earned by playing in multiplayer, they can also be purchased with real-world cash in order to ‘accelerate the growth of your Card collection’. Completing milestones in the game will unlock further Gear Packs.
Gear Packs are randomized and will provide a variety of unlocks based on the Gear Pack’s theme. If you’re an aficionado of collecting baseball cards as a child you’ll know that there’s nothing more painful than getting a card you don’t want, or a third or fourth copy of the same worthless card in a pack. The Coalition aims to make this a bit less painful with its card creation system. Players will have the ability to ‘scrap’ unwanted cards in order to earn scrap currency. Obviously the rarer the card the higher amount of scrap currency it will yield. In turn, players will be able to use their scrap to create pretty much any card they want.
The last way in which players can acquire Gear Packs are in person at events and at retailers showcasing Gears of War 4. Physical Gear Packs will be available at San Diego Comicon (or given away over Twitter if you can’t attend) and contain some beautiful, but also very functional cards! They will unlock 10 specific customization items and bounties to use when the game releases this October. Each physical Gear Pack includes five cards – one Crimson Omen sticker card, a Gears Avatar t-shirt card, and three customization cards. If you pre-order at Gamestop you’ll get a Physical Gear Pack that includes a Vintage Reyna character as well.