Let me be clear, Gears 5 is a must have for every gamer. Scoring 97% and a LifeisXbox recommended tag, here is our full review if you missed it. Over a year later developer Coalition has a gift for Gears fans. A brand-new campaign expansion, with around four hours of play time. This time you won’t be playing with Kait Diaz or Marcus Fenix, in Gears 5: Hivebusters you take control of Scorpio Squad. This allows the Coalition to take a different approach to character backstory and often comical dialogue between Mac, Keegan and Lahni. You might know them from the excellent Escape game mode introduced in Gears 5. It feels like Gears, it looks and sounds like Gears but at the same time the new direction is a welcome one.
This is a short-review, our usual the good, mixed and the bad was difficult because of the nature of this game. We played Hivebusters for five hours on Xbox Series X.
Gears 5 already managed to impress gamers with outstanding visuals and Hivebusters easily takes the crown as best looking game on consoles. The lively jungle island setting combined with impressive set pieces, highly detailed textures, impressive vistas, and beautiful reflections makes this the game you want to share with friends. While short, Hivebusters has two gameplay moments that I simply see as the most fun I had with a Gears single-player, one of them is the ending. I was genuinely interested in the Scorpio squad and Hana Cole. While the DLC doesn’t really have an engaging story the character-building is more than enough to keep players interested.
A more humoristic dialogue is the biggest change in Hivebusters, making it a bit more relaxing to play. While you have large and epic fights it is when Hivebusters slows down that it becomes really fun to play. Frequently the game changes pacing and becomes more of an adventure game, putting the emphasis on what’s going on in the world. More clear changes have been made with power weapons too, you will get your hands on them much more making the battles more fun and diverse. Squad powers come into play here too, all three of them have unique abilities. Mac has a shield that blocks enemy fire, keegan can drop an ammo box and Lahni has a lighting knife for powerful melee attacks. Throughout the game you can find collectibles that improve the special abilities, while this is surely a positive thing I felt that the game was too short to really take advantage of that. I can’t say enough how great this DLC is though, The Coalition did an excellent job with Hivebusters!
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