Today, Horde players in Gears of War 4 will have new content with the new “Rise of the Horde” update. In addition to new maps, the update will include new skills for all five classes and tougher difficulty options to further challenge your team.
There are a total of 15 new skills available (three for each class), which you can view below. In addition, the maximum skill level for every skill is now six (previously, it was level 5) so that you can continue progress on your current skills while also trying out the new additions from this latest update.
In the past, you received skills by purchasing packs with in-game or real-world currency. Now you can obtain Skills when you kill an enemy boss at waves 30, 40, and 50. On the harder difficulty levels, these bosses can drop rare skills that can drastically improve your role in combat. Speaking of difficulty levels, the developers added the “Inconceivable” difficulty, which is a step above Insane. Playing the campaign on this difficulty means that you’ll have even less ammo to work with, and you’ll take significantly more damage from enemies so every move you make is crucial. In Horde, playing on Inconceivable just means that your enemies will be stronger, and you will have less health.
If you want to try the new difficulty level for Horde, you’ll have to prove yourself first by completing 50 waves on Insane. If you’re looking for an additional challenge, there’s also the new “Ironman” mode, which you can add onto any difficulty setting. Simply put, a game over in Ironman mode means that you have to start at the very beginning, whether it’s the game’s campaign or wave 49 of Horde. If you decide to play with the Ironman modifier, you’ll get an additional 5% boost towards the experience points gained from completing Horde as well as additional bounties.
On top of the new content for Horde, The Coalition also introduced two new maps to the game: Avalanche and Rust Lung from Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3, respectively. Die-hard competitive fans of the game will also benefit from the update today as Ranked multiplayer matches are now compatible for Crossplay, so you can play against opponents on Xbox One or on Windows 10 PCs. However, those playing on the Xbox One can restrict gameplay so that they only play against other Xbox One players by turning the Crossplay Ttoggle on or off.
Other features from the update include 20 new achievements, a special event for the Versus Mode, the return of Wings levels, and additional rewards for players in the form of Packs. The update is live now, and you can check out the release notes on the game's page.
