Set on the fictional planet of Sera, the “Gears of War” series charts the story of humanity’s struggle against fearsome and brutal adversaries through a captivating tale of hope, comradery and survival.

After narrowly escaping an attack on their village, JD Fenix and his friends, Kait and Del, must rescue the ones they love and discover the source of a monstrous new enemy. “Gears of War 4” returns the franchise to the dark tone and intensity of the original and includes split-screen and online co-op, the next generation of five-player favorite, Horde Mode, 60 frames-per-second Versus multiplayer, and stunning visuals powered by Unreal Engine 4.

We have pushed out a change to Gears 4 this evening that affects the credit and XP earn rates in Gears of War 4 Horde modes (Public and Private matches). Below is a rundown of what to expect: 

• Credit earn rates have increase across all difficulties. Players can expect to earn more credits in Horde mode now.
• We have shifted total credit earn rates to tie a bit more in with finishing the waves and less on finishing consecutive waves. This is to help players not feel as if they are being punished for trying higher difficulties and not always making it to 50.
• We have also increased the Level XP earn rate on classes.

We are still looking at other changes for the future but wanted to get this update out before the weekend. 

We wanted to give you all an update on some items we have been tracking based off of community feedback and bug reports sent in by you. We appreciate all the comments over the past week and a half and we have been trying to consume as much of it as possible. We may not comment on each item but we do read through everything. Our goal is to provide a great amount of transparency when we are actioning on specific pieces as we want the best possible experience for all players. Below are some top level items that we are working on. I should note that there are many more updates beyond the list below but I wanted to highlight some of the ones that larger discussions have been focused around over the past week. Expect update notes tied with larger Title Updates to cover off more of those other topics.

Those update notes will be released as we get closer to the release of each Title Update. 

• Hammerburst Balancing: This one has been a big pain point amongst those in Core and Social. Gameplay has been dominated with long range combat and we do have some tuning coming up that will address this. We expect this in the next big Title Update. 
• Competitive Lancer/Gnasher adjustments: We have some additional changes we are planning for the competitive Lancer and Gnasher. We will have more details on this in the future. We expect this in the next big Title Update. 
• Matches not starting with full amount of players: We have a team looking into this immediately as this one is pretty concerning. There may be a quick fix that we can do on the backend to address this but it may require some additional work that would come in a later Title Update. We will do what we can to mitigate and correct this one as soon as possible.
• Harsher Quit Penalties: We are looking to implement some harsher quit penalties to players in an upcoming update. Unfortunately this requires a bit more legwork but we are seeing if we can prioritize and have this come out sooner rather than later. We expect this in a future Title Update but not the next large one.  
• Competitive/Core Lobbies: This requires an extensive amount of work but we have it on our roadmap and are hoping to have this out in a future large Title Update. 
• General Pack feedback items: We have received a mountain of feedback regarding our Gears Pack system. We are looking into ways of improving the experience for all users and we are also looking at additional opportunities to help players obtain packs. We will keep you posted on these notes in the near future. 
• Footsteps of teammates much louder than opponents: We believe DeeBee footstep audio seems to be in a good place based off of feedback from you all. We are looking at increasing human and swarm footstep audio. This will be in a future title update. 
• PC Crossplay Request / Inability to find matches in Core & Competitive: We will be experimenting with Social crossplay weekends. During this time we will be looking at backend telemetry on the performance of players. After we gather some information, we will look into what we can potentially do for further crossplay opportunities. We will also be looking into offering Bonus XP in specific modes that will be constantly rotating either each day or on a weekly basis to help incentivize people to try out each of our different game modes. This would be for both platforms XB1 and PC. We will keep you posted on when these updates hit. 
• Gnasher shots firing but ammo not depleting and registering: We have a fix for this in our next large Title Update 
• 0% / 100% UI notifications: This is tied to Unreal rounding numbers up and down and thus confusing people with the numbers they are displaying. We are going to see if we can address this so it comes across a bit more clear on what your true damage and damage taken is. This will occur in a future update. 
• Backfilling in Horde Matchmaking: We want to remind people here that you can invite people from your friends list if someone drops off. We will continue looking into this but wanted to remind that this feature exists and also allows for the user who is being invited to understand what scenario they are about to enter. 
• KOTH/Execution Time Adjustments: Execution I believe is currently set for 10 minutes. That’s long! We are going to readjust this so players aren’t stalemating for long periods of time. KOTH will be reduced to 1 round in social and we will listen to additional dialogue from Core players if this needs to be reduced down or not. We expect these changes in the next Title Update if not sooner. 
• Windows Insiders not being able to play: There is now a new Insider Build that corrects this issue. (Build 14951). You can read more about it here. 
• Ranks not displaying for other users in Squad: We are aware of this. We want to display ranks for other users in the squad. This will be in a future Title Update, but will not be present in the next one. 
• Horde Class Icons in Scoreboard: We are also aware of this one. We want people to be aware of other classes they are working with in-game. This will be in a future Title Update, but will not be present in the next one. 
• PC Mics not working correctly at all times: We are looking into this one and have a future Title Update that will address this issue. 
• Horde Score abuse issues: We have received a few reports on this and have fixes coming related to this. We will probably also look into wiping leaderboards after this is done to ensure players can compete to achieve legitimate scores. 
• Grenade spawning issue: We have this issue logged and will have a fix for this in a future Title Update. 
• Players sometimes leaving maps: We have this issue logged and will have a fix for this in a future Title Update. Players caught abusing this will be subject to disciplinary action including suspensions and bans. 

Some of you may ask, “Why are these landing in Title Updates and why aren’t they being addressed tomorrow?” Sometimes changing things requires a Title Update and sometimes we can do smaller scale updates through our back end services structure. It’s the nature of the system. We can sometimes do quick Title Updates to tackle blockers, such as the updates we released at launch and last Friday, but those are singular fixes that we can speed through the certification process due to how small they are. 

We have plenty planned for upcoming community events, additional game content, maps and more to share in the near future. You can expect news on some of those pieces very soon. Again, we greatly appreciate all the feedback. We have a great internal live team working through all of these and our mission is to ensure we can tackle as many of these feedback items as possible. We will keep you guys posted on any changes to the above list along with any additions. Thanks!

Key Features:

• New Story, Heroes and a Nightmare Reborn: The first chapter of an all-new “Gears” saga thrusts players into an epic and perilous journey through the wilds of Sera. Fight as JD Fenix – son of the legendary hero Marcus Fenix – as he embarks on a desperate mission with his friends Kait and Del to find their missing loved ones and confront a fearsome new threat.
• Never Fight Alone: Rev up your Lancer and fight your way through the Campaign with a friend over Xbox Live or via local split screen co-op, with the option to play as JD, Kait or Del. Cross Play lets Xbox One and Windows 10 gamers play together in cooperative modes like Campaign, Horde and Co-Op Versus.
• Shared Progression and Achievements with Xbox Play Anywhere across Xbox One and Windows 10: Cloud saves enable you to switch seamlessly between both versions of game, giving you the freedom to play where you choose. Both versions are included with a single purchase.
• Fight through a Dynamic and Deadly Environment: Brace yourself against ferocious windflares that blow away cover, bend your shots and drastically alter the battlefield, forcing you to employ new tactics. As the windflare intensity increases, each enemy confrontation evolves into a brutal fight for survival in this tale of Man vs. Monster.
• New Arsenal of Weapons and Combat Tactics: Pummel your enemies from cover with new close-cover combat moves like yank, vault kick and a bloody new combat-knife execution. Make use of dangerous new weapons, like the Buzzkill and Dropshot, to shoot around and over cover, raining destruction from all angles.
•  The Best “Gears” Multiplayer Experience Yet: Whether you enjoy powering through the co-op Campaign, fending for survival in Horde mode or testing your skills in frenetic Versus Multiplayer matches running in 60 FPS on dedicated servers, “Gears of War 4” is the ultimate game to play with friends.
  • Explosive Versus Multiplayer Action: Compete in intense multiplayer gametypes that reward social, competitive and professional players alike, including new modes like Dodgeball and the premier new competitive “Gears” multiplayer mode, Escalation. Track your progress with the new visible ranking system that drives online matchmaking and lets you stand out for your abilities.  
  • The Next Generation of Horde: Team up with up to four other players and weather the onslaught using class-based skills and dynamic fortifications. For the first time, you can build and deploy defensive weapons and fortifications anywhere on the map.
  • Play with Friends Against AI Foes: Fine-tune your skills in Co-Op Versus, where your match-made team of five squares off against increasingly punishing AI teams.
• The Complete “Gears of War” Collection: For a limited time, “Gears of War 4” (both digital and retail versions) will include the entire Xbox 360 “Gears of War” collection. Play through the original “Gears of War” trilogy and “Gears of War: Judgment” on Xbox One via backwards compatibility, amounting to over 50 hours of “Gears of War” gameplay.