A little over a month after the release of the first-ever AAA game title in Windows Store—Rise of the Tomb Raider—Windows 10 gamers are getting a new blockbuster: Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. Like its predecessor, this remastered Gears game offers 4K graphics capabilities on the PC.
And like Rise of the Tomb Raider, this new version of Gears of War—remember, it’s a remake of the original Gears game, which did actually ship on the PC 8 long years ago—comes with some heady hardware requirements: Windows 10 version 1511 64-bit, a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 or better, 8 GB of RAM, and Geforce GTX 650 Ti or Radeon R7 260x graphics with 2 GB of dedicated RAM. And the recommended specs–4 GHz Core i7, 16 GB of RAM, Geforce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon R9 390X graphics with 6 GB of dedicated RAM—are also decidedly high-end.
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But what you’ll get, of course, is a visual feast: “Every aspect of the original Gears of War has been beautifully remastered and modernized, including lighting, environments, characters, and cinematic scenes,” Microsoft explains. And you can “play in stunning 4K with an unlocked refresh rate.” The Xbox One version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which shipped last August and is excellent (and yes, I did finish it), comes in at “just” 1080p.
Here’s a rundown of what’s new in the Windows 10 version of the game (much of which debuted first on the Xbox One):
I did get early access to this game, but most of the PCs I have at the moment are unable to play it in all of its visual splendor. But this is clearly the remastered Xbox One version of the game taken to new graphical heights. And that is a wonderful thing.
You can purchase Gears of War: Ultimate Edition for Windows 10 via the Windows Store now. It costs just $30, but it is an enormous 53 GB download.
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