E3 2011

E3 2011: Gears of War 3 Horde Mode 2.0 Preview

By Sophia Tong

Horde mode is back but not without changes and new additions to the popular cooperative mode.

There's more Gears of War 3 news coming your way, even though we just saw a demo earlier today regarding the single-player campaign. After the first day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Epic Games and Microsoft held an event in the evening to highlight the new mode, Horde 2.0, but it was also a party where rapper and voice actor Ice-T came onstage to perform with his band, Body Count. GameSpot was there as well, speaking to executive producer Rod Fergusson and creative director Cliff Bleszinski, as well as the voice cast from the game.

This was our first opportunity to get some hands-on time with the new mode, and after spending a good amount of time in the competitive beta, we found Horde 2.0 quite enjoyable. Competitive Gears of War multiplayer required a lot of teamwork to be successful, and in Horde mode that teamwork is mandatory if you hope to fend off 50 waves of locusts and the glowing lambents. In a team of five, you have to defeat the oncoming rush, and at least one person must survive. However, during some waves, our objective was to keep everyone alive.

One major change that you'll notice right away is that now there is the ability to build fortifications on the map. The map we were playing on was called "Hotel," so the once-ritzy hotel lobby made a great base for us to fortify and defend. Between each wave you'll have 30 seconds to walk around and add barricades, turrets, decoys, and sentry guns to help in the next round. There is a currency system now, so in order to repair, build, revive yourself, or even pick up certain weapons, there's a fee. You'll earn cash by killing enemies and helping your teammates, and the more you play this mode, the more cool items you'll unlock--one of them being the silverback, a mech suit which we saw in the campaign demo. We didn't get to play with the silverback, but a new weapon that we came across was the cleaver, a ridiculously large sword that drags along the ground when you run, leaving sparks. It's not the most efficient weapon, especially when it's a bit slow and you're swinging pretty wildly with it. But it makes short work of locusts when they're right in front of you.

Given that it is a cooperative game, you can always help your teammates out by sharing ammo or swapping weapons. You can even be a mooch and ask for money. This changes up the strategy quite a bit, as each wave gets progressively harder. But your base will slowly expand over the course of 50 waves as well, so you can upgrade and secure a larger perimeter. Every 10 waves you'll face a boss wave, where instead of drones and the not-so-bright Boomers, you're likely going to have to fend off the larger Brumaks or the shrieking Berserkers. It'll be an intense round for sure, but what keeps you on your toes is that in each wave, the enemy types are randomized, so sometimes you'll need to change up your strategy a bit to be more efficient.

The hotel map was a nice change from the maps that we've grown accustomed to in the beta, and the layout was clearly designed for this mode in mind. Even though it's clear the city has seen better days, there was some foliage decorating the streets and hotel interior to give the map some semblance of life. The environment was more colorful and vibrant thanks to the lavish hotel interior and extra palm trees. It was even easier to identify teammates in the distance because the blue in their armor was bright and stood out more.

Another feature that has been added to Horde 2.0 but that we didn't see is Mutators, where you can adjust the difficulty in private matches and customize the game types. If you've messed around with Big Head mode during the beta, you can do the same here and give the enemies giant heads and squeaky voices. One last thing to point out is that there is host migration, so in the event that the host quits, the match will continue. As always, there will be plenty of ribbons, medals, and weapon skins to unlock, so you can get in on all of this when Gears of War 3 is released on September 20.

By Sophia Tong

55 Comments

  • omghaxor45

    Posted Aug 3, 2011 12:56 am GMT

    omfg cant wait!! i love the fact that theres mutators too! i could just tell they're doing everything they can to make this game a little bit more fun! and when the article said about the sword 'a ridiculously large sword that drags along the ground when you run, leaving sparks' wow lol cant wait to see how that looks!!!

  • C00RS_LITE

    Posted Jun 15, 2011 11:29 am GMT

    I'm on Gears 3 withdrawl after the Beta was over. I can't wait till it comes out this game is gunna be sick!

  • thenephariouson

    Posted Jun 13, 2011 12:51 pm GMT

    Whats the bet theres a 'Seriously 3.0' achievement [Kill 1,000,000,000] enemies : )

  • lipehique

    Posted Jun 11, 2011 9:31 am GMT

    @moonstrider101 oh, didnt know that. thnks

  • SolanOcard

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 7:13 pm GMT

    Just looked it up, it was (is?) called Beast Mode.

    http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gears-of-war-3/news/6266431/gears-of-war-3-beast-mode-hands-on?mode=previews


    BTW, GO VANCOUVER!

  • SolanOcard

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 7:12 pm GMT

    Wait... is this in addition to, or in replace of, the mode that was announced a long time ago, where you play as the Locust and earn upgrades to more powerful Locust (start off as a lowly drone and move up to a Brumak...)?

  • masa182

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 8:34 am GMT

    I love their new system I cant fukin'wait to play horde mode & beast mode 1!

  • DFBTG

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 1:39 am GMT

    So long as local co-op campaign is kept, I'll be satisfied. Best part of Gears (aside from chainsawing) in my opinion.

  • moonstrider101

    Posted Jun 9, 2011 1:32 pm GMT

    @lipehique World at War and GOW 2 came out the same year 2008 and GOW2 was actually released a few days before. Both games were created during the same time period and since they are so completely different, there was no way the developers could know that both would have a similar game type.

  • MJ_kratos

    Posted Jun 9, 2011 10:49 am GMT

    wow ! I love it

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Jun 9, 2011 1:13 am GMT

    "We didn't get to play with the silverback, but a new weapon that we came across was the cleaver, a ridiculously large sword that drags along the ground when you run, leaving sparks."

    I can shake the feeling that I have heard of this idea more than a few times before.

  • -DirtySanchez-

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 8:24 pm GMT

    i like the idea of the new horde mode but i hope they have a classic option aswell

  • lipehique

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 6:21 pm GMT

    People... I HATE cod, i LOVE GOW, but i couldnt just let this pass... The "cod zombie mode" was created a long time ago in world at war games, so i guess it was created first. but gow horde is still great.

  • Edot0

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 4:25 pm GMT

    Can't wait to set up the turrets and laser fences and hold off dozens of locust! Going to be EPIC!

    BUT.....Where is the video??!!

    FAIL.

  • DoomSky

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 2:11 pm GMT

    Gears 2 made the "Horde" game type popular in action games again but I think so far Halo Reach's firefight has made the best version thanks to the massive customisation of the experience but this looks set to take the crown back.

  • hybrid7seven7

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 12:36 pm GMT

    sounds like some excellent improvements. Gears has pioneered such great gameplay elements. just watch as other games start adding similar features in their survival modes

  • Barighm

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 12:34 pm GMT

    One of the best things about Horde mode was its simplicity where other games try to do their own spin on the formula and can't get it right. Hopefully this doesn't change the feel of Horde mode too much. Here's hoping for the option to play the classic version.

  • usermikey

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 11:51 am GMT

    @ MarcRecon Hell yeah!!

  • Overlord93

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 11:15 am GMT

    Barricades and currency sounds awesome

  • advanracer

    Posted Jun 8, 2011 9:52 am GMT

    "Horde Morde" as what OJ Ice-T said..i mean OG.