‘Gears Of War 4’ Testing Xbox And Win 10 Versus Crossplay This Weekend With Major XP Bonuses
Gears of War 4 fans will not only have the chance to play Versus multiplayer cross-platform this weekend but earn some major XP bonuses in the promise. The Coalition announced a trial Crossplay Versus multiplayer trial Wednesday as the developer considers allowing Xbox One and Windows 10 owners to play with one another outside of Horde mode and the campaign.
The Coalition will make a public Versus playlist dedicated to cross-play between the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC owners available starting this Friday, December 2, and through the weekend. The test will help determine whether or not this will be a permanent feature in the future and how it may be implemented if the developers do go forward with it.
Gears of War 4 owners will certainly have the incentive to play this weekend. The Coalition is more than doubling the XP rewards for wins and increasing the rewards 7.5 times for losses. Here are the details shared by the developer in a post on the game’s official forums.
Playlist Type: Social
Modes: Team Deathmatch, Dodgeball, King of the Hill
Maps: All (including Checkout and Dry Dock)
Win XP: 1500 (up from 600)
Loss XP: 750 (up from 100)
Maximum Squad Size: 5
Earn bigger XP bonuses in the #GearsofWar4 Crossplay Test Weekend Special Event coming this Friday!
Details: https://t.co/hhJfrQ5Anr pic.twitter.com/U3wIUEWHnZ
— Gears of War (@GearsofWar) November 30, 2016
This is a boon for Gears of War 4 players trying to rank up their characters and buy more Gears Packs to earn skins or bonus abilities in Horde. Players receive an in-game credit bonus every for five levels they rank up. These overly high win and loss XP bonuses should make ranking up go much faster.
Still, it is all about the testing.
“The purpose of this weekend is to give Crossplay a trial run in a public playlist. We care deeply about players on both platforms and we’ve heard you, so our goal is to use this event to bring in a ton of data and listen to feedback from players on both platforms to examine the results,” The Coalition explained.
“What comes next after this hasn’t been decided – this weekend is an incredibly important first step in this process. Once we use the combination of our data and your feedback together, we’ll be able to make an informed next step (or not as the case may be). The key thing we want to stress is that we won’t be making any surprise changes all of a sudden based on this weekend.”
Competitive multiplayer cross-play is a constant sore point between PC and consoles. The dexterity provided by a keyboard and mouse typically give PC players a leg up in shooters. The Coalition elected to limit cross-play for Gears of War 4 to PVE game modes like Horde and campaign with PVP modes only available in private Versus matches.
However, Gears of War 4 players on Windows 10 owners have complained about the smaller Versus player population on the platform compared to the Xbox One. This has led to longer search times for matches and no ability to find matches at all on the PC at times. If Microsoft’s purpose behind the Play Anywhere initiative is to broaden the pool of prospective players for multiplayer matches, this is one that needs just such a larger pool of players.
With Checkout and Dry Dock recently released as free maps, The Coalition has new maps right around the corner. The Coalition Community Manager Adam Fletcher announced via Twitter the developer will begin revealing the two free maps for December starting Thursday, December 1.
This should be a repeat of last month with the studio revealing the new maps over the course of a week or so followed by the release of the maps midway through the month. Season Pass owners will get them exclusively for a week followed by everyone gaining access.
Does the promise of Versus cross-play and major XP bonuses have you planning a Gears of War 4 filled weekend? Sound off in the comments below.
[Featured Image by The Coalition/Microsoft]
