With Gears 5 launching, you may be looking for Gears 5 tips and tricks to improve your multiplayer gameplay. Gears of War 5 has a steep learning curve and can be tough to get into if you're new to the franchise; it's very different to other shooter games such as Modern Warfare 2019. You need to make the most of the Gears 5 maps and weapons to get the best results and be familiar with the game mechanics. These tips can also be applied to the Gears 5 Campaign mode, Escape mode, Arcade mode and Horde mode.
Below I have given a basic overview and set of tips and tricks for beginners, with more detailed and advanced tips to come later in seperate articles; those will be dedicated to each topic sepcifically.
This article will be updated frequently, so I would recommend bookmarking this page and checking back regularly.
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In this article, I've seperated the tips into the following sections:
- Weapon Knowledge
- Develop Your Own Style Of Play
- Map Awareness & Reading The Game
- Positioning And Personal Movement
- Simple Game Mechanics
- Cover System Mechanics, Shot Types And Wall Bouncing
- Sniping, Character Animations & Predicting Movements
Read More: Gears 5: All Confirmed Maps In The Gears of War 5 Multiplayer
1) Weapon Knowledge
Before you start playing Gears 5, you need to understand the kit you have at your disposal. You’ll always start with a lancer rifle, gnasher shotgun, grenade (you can choose a flash or smoke grenade) and snub pistol. If you’re being aggressive or running around, always have a gnasher out and ready to go. When you’re playing slow and being passive, pull out your lancer.
Your lancer rifle is great for long ranged fights and slowing down enemies, while the gnasher shotgun is fantastic for close battles. Both can hold their own in the opposite situation, however it is preferable to use them in this way. The Gnasher can insta-gib an opponent, while the lancer can’t and will down an enemy at best; meaning if you're caught out at close range you will struggle to win the duel. Likewise being caught in the open, by a lancer, with a shotgun in your hands can spell disaster.
One of the most important important things to remember with weapons is the reloading mechanic “Active Reload” - upon getting a perfect reload you will receive a damage boost for a limited time. This is a great opportunity to do a surprising amount of damage and catch opponents off guard and something you should take full advantage of. (To do this you need to hit your reload timer on the small white line as demonstrated below).
It's important to be prepared when going into the fierce nature that is Gears 5 multiplayer, it’s advised to jump into the Gears 5 campaign, horde mode, escape mode or even arcade mode to test out some of these weapons. Every weapon is unique, some are more powerful than others and ultimately easier to use than others with different purposes.
2) Develop Your Own Style Of Play
Everyone is different and has their own playstyle, that means you’ll need to find yours to get the most out of every game.
A great way to develop your own playstyle is to understand what weapons and mechanics you’re best with. If you find more success with a lancer, it's probably best to play a more passive team based style - often covering flanks and laying down cover fire on opponents to help your team push objectives and control points on the map like power weapon spawns. In contrast, if you find the gnasher shotgun is your kind of vibe, be aggressive and get into the enemies face so you can kill enemies and clear the way for your team.
Your controller layout is important to getting the most out of the game; you will start on default. If you can, I would recommend playing on tournament layout, the main difference here is that LB will become your cover/evade/mantle button. This is great because it allows you to do things such as a wall bouncing and evading enemies without having to take your thumb off of the right thumbstick; you’ll become a much tougher target to hit.
The sensitivity you choose is an important setting and will ultimately depend on your playstyle. If you’re going to play a slow and calm style, I recommend lowering your sensitivity to focus on your aim at distance. However, if you’re going to engage in more frantic and tight battles, I recommend upping your sensitivity to compliment your quick turns and shotgun fights.
3) Map Awareness & Reading The Game
Like any shooter game, you need to pay attention to the map and read the flow of action. Gears 5’s spawn system is much more linear compared to other shooting games, especially in kill dependant modes, which plays in your favour when assessing where the flow of enemy traffic will be.
Although Gears 5 doesn’t have a mini-map quite like Call of Duty, it does have a feature called Tac-Com. This will appear when prompted via the appropriate button (LB on default layout and A on tournament) to highlight your teammates and power weapon locations on the map. You should use this regularly to give you an idea of what weapons are available and where your team is to plan out your next move and your role in the game’s current state.
As mentioned before, the Tac-Com is great for understanding where power weapons are and when they are available. It’s important to learn these locations because this is where EVERYONE will be heading to throughout the game, ESPECIALLY at the start of a round. There are also timers on weapons before they will respawn, it's important to remember that until a weapon is dropped or emptied it will not respawn; this will be indicated via your Tac-Com system. If the weapon is coloured white it is available, if it is grey it is unavailable, when the timer appears it means the last one is empty or has been dropped.
Use your team, this game can be very cruel on those that get caught out and it is important to stick with them, if you’re struggling to handle yourself solo. You can also use them as a buffer between you and the enemy to avert their attention while you flank or pick them off.
4) Positioning And Personal Movement
When you're in a gunfight you need to be considerate of your positioning and the environment around you.
One of the most important concepts to understand is gap closing. By being able to manipulate the space between you and your opponent, you can quickly turn a fight on its head. When dealing with gnasher shotguns, it has the power to insta-kill an enemy. If you're in trouble and at a health disadvantage, your best option is to actually get as close as possible to increase your chances of insta-killing your opponent. As a result, when you have a health advantage you want to keep a safe distance between you and your opponent to ensure the opposite can not happen to you.
You also want to take into account the environment and what you can do with it. Put yourself in a position where you can slide/evade into cover. If you're caught in the open, all you can do is hope you outgun your opponent.
When firing your weapon you can hard aim or hip fire. It's self explanatory that hard aiming is far more accurate than a hipfire, but it can make you extremely static and an easier target to hit. When you're close to your enemy, hip firing is much better as you can stay mobile and quickly adjust your position. You're also able to pop-shot, which is momentarily pressing LT causing you to aim with your weapon briefly, allowing you to maintain your mobility whilst increasing your accuracy.
5) Simple Game Mechanics
There are some simple mechanics that everyone should know about in Gears 5 that may not be obvious from the get-go.
Swapping weapons can be handy if you pick up a power weapon and you want to give it to a more able player. Simply go up to your teammate, hold LT while looking at them and press X.
It's important to remember that every player is right-handed, meaning if you approach left corners you will be fully exposed - this can be overcome by utilising the lefty switch.
Tac-Com will allow you to see your team through walls, power weapon locations and whether they are available or not. This is done with LB on default layout and A on tournament.
The Melee is a great last ditch mechanic that will help you take down an enemy when you’re out of ammo - it will take 2 melee attacks to down an opponent at full health and a third to execute. This is done with the B button.
Marking enemies will allow you to spot them, for you and your team, for a short period of time - this will highlight that enemy for players to see. This is done by holding LT, moving your crosshair over your opponent and pressing the left stick inwards. You should do this regularly to help your team out and allow you to track enemies through walls.
Grenade tagging can be done by taking a grenade and meleeing any piece of cover or wall. When an enemy walks by it will detonate - this can be done with any grenade and should be done to help watch your flank and alert you when an enemy is nearby.
Crouching in cover can be done by clicking the left thumb stick (this can only be done on standing cover), it's helpful during sniper battles to throw your opponent off.
Executions look fancy but are a waste of time and can get you killed in a lot of situations; when you do an execution you are locked into the animation and cannot move until it is finished. It's more effective to either melee your opponent or shoot them when they’re down to finish the job.
6) Cover System Mechanics, Shot Types And Wall Bouncing
Cover can be used as more than just a defensive tool, it can be used as an offensive one too. It's also important to remember that just because you’re in cover, that does not mean you are safe from your opponent.
One of the best things you can do is camera peaking. When you’re in cover, you can sometimes be seen by your opponents as limbs or weapons may protrude around cover. By using the third-person camera to peer around cover, you can get the drop on enemies without them knowing you’re there.
You can easily remove stubborn enemies from cover by grabbing them over mountable cover - press X to grab and then Y to execute or use your shotgun to speed up the process. You can also mantle over that cover and kick them out of cover leaving them vulnerable to be killed.
There are many different shots and techniques that you can employ, by using the cover system, that will allow you to effectively attack your enemies without it causing an inconvenience. Some of the most basic cover shots are the “Back A” (which I call the “Sweep Shot”) and the “Up A” (which I call the “Charge Shot”) - these are used to dispose of enemies who are hugging cover.
The Back A is done by sliding into cover and pulling backward on the left thumbstick, this will start to pull you off of cover, followed by shooting your shotgun as this happens. It will keep you from being hit and put you in a good position to follow up after. It will also stop enemies performing an Up A on you.
The Up A is done by sliding into cover and pushing upwards so you turn around the corner of cover and begin to run forward, as you’re turning the corner you then shoot your shotgun. This is a great way to avoid being hit with a Back A and stopping your opponent getting to cover.
There are other more advanced techniques, such as the slapshot, reaction shot, lefty flip and the slingshot that you can read about in an article coming soon.
Wall bouncing is a simple technique to learn but difficult to effectively put into practice - all Gears players should learn it, as it will increase your evasiveness. It’s the simple action of sliding in and out of cover quickly, often chaining them together. This can be done by sliding into cover using your cover/evade/mantle button (A by default and LB on tournament), as you slide into cover you will need to pull in the opposite direction to the slide to peel off of the wall. This can be done as late or early as you want depending on the situation and can be chained together depending on the environment around you.
7) Sniping, Character Animations & Predicting Movements
It can often be forgotten that every player is forced to follow the same animations when performing actions; when you realise that, movements become rather predictable. Weapon pickups, roady running, cover sliding, evading and mantling ALL perform an identical animation when performed. Once you’ve learnt how these animations play out, you can exploit them for your own benefit.
Sniping can be a difficult thing to master, as you need to land a headshot to secure a kill. By catching enemies when they’re locked into an animation, you can pick up easy kills such as picking up a weapon or peaking from cover. As your skill develops you can put this into practice on more difficult animations such as the evade, roady run or cover slide.
Something that should be taken into account is that hitboxes on certain characters can differ. In Gears of War 3 the hitboxes on female characters were smaller because they had smaller models. In theory, they should all be the same. It's also worth noting that because some of the characters are bigger, you may be hitting their model but not there hit box as it is smaller; this is to keep them in line with others and vice versa for smaller characters with bigger hit boxes.
I'll be doing a deeper dive into each section in additional articles, so be sure to follow us on Twitter to stay up to date and check back regularly for more Gears 5 content!
Written ByChris Trout@TheTrout91
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