For those that haven't heard yet, the release date for Gears of War 3 has been pushed to the fall of next year so that the game can release during the holidays rather than April. Dissapointing, but the good news is that this gives developer Epic Games the opportunity to have a multiplayer beta for Gears of War 3.
According to the official Gears of War site, subscribers to Official Xbox Magazine are due for a nice surprise in their mailboxes very soon. In one hell of a cover story, the mag details its findings from a recent trip to Epic HQ in Cary, NC, for an in-depth preview of Gears 3 multiplayer. Among the litany of revelations: In addition to a swath of online code improvements, Epic Games is bringing dedicated servers to Gears of War 3 to drive a balanced, optimized, and thrilling online experience for Gearheads everywhere.
Three new modes have been added. The first is Team Deathmatch, which may seem like the oldest and most common mode in the realm of shooters, but it comes with a Gears twist. Each team is given 20 respawns to begin with, and once your team has run out, the game turns into Warzone, where you don't get any respawns for the last five kills. This gives the game an intense finish (you're also playing for best out of three), and if you do happen to die, you won't be sitting out for very long. Fergusson explained that these changes were made to make the game more approachable, which is a primary focus for the third game in the series. Both he and Bleszinski talked about how they want to remove some of the barriers so players who have never touched a Gears game before can jump in and not feel frustrated or punished. In Warzone, you end up sitting out a lot, but in Team Deathmatch people can jump right back in shortly after they die instead of sitting out for minutes at a time. As an example of giving newcomers a hand, in Team Deathmatch, if you are buckling faster than the sinking city of Jacinto and eating up all the respawns, it will take a little bit longer for you to get back into the game, and you could spawn near a teammate for some extra cover.
The other two new modes are combinations of existing modes from Gears of War 2. Capture the Leader is a combination of Guardian and Submission with a few tweaks. Your goal is to capture the leader of the opposing team, which could be either Queen Myrrah or Chairman Prescott, who are now playable characters. Once you've captured the leader, there's no longer a ring to drag him or her to. Instead, you have to hold onto them for 30 seconds while your teammates rally around you to protect you. As a captured leader, you have the ability to try to interfere with your captor by pressing B repeatedly to try to throw off your captor's aim. If you time it right, you can even break free. As the leader, you also have the ability to see through walls, making it easier to see where the enemy is coming from. King of the Hill this time around is a combination of Annex and…King of the Hill. Fergusson explained that the goal was to get many people playing the same game type, and combining similar game modes and renaming them made for a clearer rule set. Your team must capture and hold the ring to collect points, but you don't have to stay in it to hold it. The ring also moves around the map based on a timer, whether you're holding it or not, and the game uses Wingman spawn points to prevent camping.
Further details can be found at Gamespot including new weapons, maps and more.