50°
6.0

Gears 5: Hivebusters (XS) Review | VGChartz

VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "After multiple DLCs focused on weapon balancing and new maps, The Coalition's first stab at a full-blown expansion is an odd duck I somewhat respect. Embedding more character into Escape Mode characters provides greater incentive in appreciating their tasks – not just because the game tells you. But when considering its ephemeral length and the connected comic series releasing alongside, I can't quite shake how... going-through-the-motions it feels by the end. Latching on Escape's character class structure with a regular campaign being a primary example. All of this leads to it being an easy sell for fans, but not reaching the heights of other venerated expansions from 2020."

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vgchartz.com
spicelicka1386d ago

What a horrendous review. It's a freaking $20 DLC that is free with Gamepass and was even advertised, so it had NO expectations. It looks gorgeous, gives you new bosses to fight, new locations to play in, has 3 player co-op where each player has their own ability with upgrades. It's a blast to play with a couple of friends, and has a lot of replayability. They didn't even need to give us this since no one asked for it, it's literally a bonus. I never understand these B.S. self imposed expectation reviews. Why would you compare a $20 DLC to $40 expansions? The price and content all reflect the value provided, which far exceeds the expectations frankly. For $20 most games will give you shitty skins and a stupid dancing emote.

coolbeans1386d ago

"It's literally a bonus... that's retailing for $20 if you don't have Game Pass."

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but those two things can't coexist. Just because something ALSO comes to Game Pass does not mean ergo it's to be treated in whatever kind of imaginative standard you've given it. By this logic, no one should tackle smaller titles like Minecraft Dungeons or Bleeding Edge that go for a middle-market price AND release on Game Pass Day 1 too. No, you try to consider a given product based on its suggested retail price and - hopefully - its artistic merit. Hivebusters has some replicability, but I find it moot once the credits rolled. The character abilities from Escape fashioned on an old-school Gears campaign don't mesh well. It took away cool nuances from Gears 5's main campaign and replaced with stuff that's less exciting.

-"Why would you compare a $20 DLC to $40 expansions?"

What $40 expansions are you talking about? Just to provide a comparison: Control: The Foundation & AWE (also known as better expansions) are individually priced at $20 and also released in 2020.

-"For $20 most games will give you shitty skins and a stupid dancing emote."

And most of those same games you're talking about have NO cost of entry. That's the give 'n take for that system. Has that mechanism infiltrated into AAA games too? Sure, but I'm not here to judge silly little cosmetics where you know exactly what you're in for. That'd be redundant. For someone who DOESN'T know what they're in for with Hivebusters? I say it's a decent time that fans will enjoy, but nothing much beyond that.

350°

Why Did Very Few Gamers Play The Gears 5: HiveBusters DLC?

Gears 5: HiveBusters DLC is a very good story DLC. The only problem is very few people on the Xbox platform actually played it. How is this possible?

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lv1gaming.com
iplay1up21221d ago

I thought HiveBusters was a fun expansion. It looked fantastic on my Series X.

alb18991219d ago

I and my friends downloaded it but Everytime we are together we start to play Warzone. I will play it this weekend.

1219d ago
NeoGamer2321219d ago (Edited 1219d ago )

To me, the hivebusters expansion was the best chapter of Gears 5. For those that have the expansion. If you own it on GamePass or for real, you should play it.

Kurt Russell1218d ago

I smashed through it with a friend. It is the best Gears has been in a long time, the new characters are so much better than the Gears 4/5 group... And damn it looked nice.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1218d ago
IRetrouk1221d ago

Surely this is just a glitch or something🤔

DJStotty1220d ago

Yeah it is a glitch, a quick look on TA shows that 92% have gotten the 1st achievement, even though it still shows as rare.

67% have completed all chapters of the DLC

Granted this is only TA tracked gamers, but is normally a good representation of the overall playerbase.

IRetrouk1220d ago

I assumed as much, used to use the site myself, was never 100% lol

DJStotty1220d ago

I just had a quick look and the majority of Gears 5 achievements have only been unlocked by <5%. And that is the total playerbase according to xbox.com.

It looks like the majority of Gears players just play MP as opposed to SP.

IRetrouk1220d ago

Probably a realistic reason for it, it was always more of an online thing anyway, atleast for me and those I played with.

DJStotty1220d ago (Edited 1220d ago )

I played Gears 3 for a while online (i am absolutely terrible at it lol) but have yet to play 4 and 5, i have owned them all and the only campaign i have fully completed is Gears 1 lol.

IRetrouk1220d ago

I completed the first 3 with my wife, played all 3 online too, 4 and 5 didn't pull me in as much, not sure lf it was the new characters or just a bit of fatigue, I do plan on going back to them though, just need to pry my xbox from my son, maybe I could use that as a reason to get a series x? You think the wife will buy it? Lol

DJStotty1220d ago

lol, it sounds like valid reason to me lol.

I lost interest after the 3rd, and went to other games, i will play them again at some point (probably not online though).

IRetrouk1220d ago

Lol, fingers crossed, deff have to finish the story, online I'm probably not gonna do either

NeoGamer2321219d ago (Edited 1219d ago )

Ya, TA is a good site but to use it as an accurate stats site for indicating people playing is not a good thing.

A better stat is there is 267,000 gamers on TA with the game and 46,000 have the expansion. About 20% of original game players play the expansion which is pretty on par with other DLCs.

And for those that think that 267,000 game players is the actual total game players. Look at The Last of Us II on PS.... It says there are 180,000 gamers.

True Achievements and True Trophies do not represent everyone playing the game.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 1219d ago
waverider1221d ago

The story is long dead and gamers want something fresh. Its even more strange is the fact this DLC is on gamepass and less then 10% didnt play this game not even for 15 minutes ...

phoenixwing1221d ago

I bought gears 5 but have yet to play it or the dlc too many games in my backlog

waverider1221d ago

I think its the best game to show the Series X power.

DJStotty1220d ago

The game that is used to showcase xbox's power, and has been for generations, is the Forza Motorsport series. (not horizon).

phoenixwing1220d ago

Wave I have a pc not a xbox

badz1491219d ago

Gears 5 is dirt cheap on Steam summer sales right now too - even cheaper than A Hat in Time. maybe I should finally get it? I don't know...my still-sealed copy of Gears4 lurking back there somewhere.

funny story with that...I bought Gears4 pretty early on because it came with Gears1-3 too, right? I thought I was gonna buy an xbone at a later time back then, but then MS announced they are going PC. so...yeah...THAT happened!

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1219d ago
DJStotty1220d ago

@waverider

You jumped on this quite quick without doing research buddy.

92% of tracked gamers played the DLC, it is right there in the TA achievements listing

https://www.trueachievement...

Unlocked during 2nd chapter

waverider1220d ago (Edited 1220d ago )

Dude go read the story. I just told what is in the story. they didnt even play 15 minutes of the game. Thats what he saying. And yes achievements is something easy to see how much did the gamer played.

Highrevz1219d ago

@Waverider achievements and trophies are not useful to gauge players on. They all have strange figures due to a achievement hunters and people starting the game without unlocking any.

The % for the dlc might be based on people who have GPU which could count as them “owning” the dlc

The article doesn’t mention how this is calculated and I’d like to truly know how they are.

On topic Gears is Niche and has never been one for high players, especially the campaign and DLC.

DJStotty1219d ago (Edited 1219d ago )

@Waverider

I read the story, i am just telling you the correct figures for the achievements mentioned in the article.

Did you read it? If not i will quote the article itself, and how he came to his "conclusion" that no one played more than 15 minutes.

1) "If you are still reading and are wondering how I came to this conclusion, the answer is very simple. The very first achievement that you receive at the beginning of the DLC for simply just playing the game is a rare achievement."

Fact check - According to TA - 67% of tracked gamers completed all DLC missions (31,239 gamers)
Xbox.com (offical figures) 3.2% of all gamers completed the DLC

So at least 160,000 gamers completed the DLC (using 5m sales as a baseline)

2) "And thanks to sites like True Achievements, you can see that every single achievement for the Gears 5: HiveBusters DLC for right now is a rare achievement."

He has based all his "findings" off a ping you get when you unlock a rare achievement.

Fact check - More or less all achievements in gears 5 are rare, not just the hivebusters DLC.

A rare achievement in Gears 5's case, would amount to less than 500,000 people playing the first mission of the DLC, at the moment it stands at 4.72% = at least 236,000 gamers playing the first mission (using 5m sales as a baseline)

Summary - Article is attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill, and trying to paint Gears 5, as being "dead", which in reality, it is not. Hence the use of jumping on this article a bit quickly before fact checking.

90% of all gears achievements are less than 5% unlocked, Gears is predominantly played online.

Hope this helps.

Edit :

@Highrevz

"On topic Gears is Niche and has never been one for high players, especially the campaign and DLC."

Exactly, 100% agree, it is like Halo, sure, some people play the campaign, but the majority play for the MP.

itsmebryan1219d ago

I finished it and enjoyed it . It looked great on my 4ktv.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1219d ago
NeoGamer2321219d ago

Speak for yourself. Gears is younger then Halo, God of War, Mario, Zelda, GT, Ratchet & Clank, Forza Motorsports, and many, many other iconic franchises. And in many cases has had less iterations.

To me Gears is a unique third person shooter and it has plenty of life left in it. I enjoy running around with the lancer chainsaw and cutting baddies in half!

waverider1219d ago

Story wise its long past its days. There is so much they can do in this kind of games. It lost the main stars and the one they create just dont cut it anymore. I think Gears and Gears 2 and 3 are the best. From there, story wise, it was always down. This Franchise was crazy good on the 360. A huge system seller. I think i still got a t-shirt from this game.

Orchard1220d ago

Is TrueAchievements really an accurate way of measuring this? I believe they only scan their registered users, not the entire Xbox player base.

DJStotty1220d ago (Edited 1220d ago )

Correct, they only give a percentage of tracked gamers.

But even with that 92% of 39,000 tracked gamers have unlocked the achievement referenced in the article lol.

Edit : also the author fails to mention that 80-90% of all the Gears 5 achievements are rare.

waverider1219d ago

The amount of damage control you are doing on this news is just crazy. There no spin here. The game is on gamepass... The numbers are low and this was the only new stuff you got from microsoft for the next gen. And Forza wasnt ever the graphics benchmark. A racer never is. You should now that by now. Gears is the top dog on graphics on the Xbox.

DJStotty1217d ago (Edited 1217d ago )

"Gears is the top dog on graphics on the Xbox."

But yet they chose Forza as a showcase of the power? strange that......

Gears or Halo, have never been used to showcase xbox's power, name one E3 where they used either franchise to showcase what an xbox can do... i'll wait..... (could be waiting some time)

Note : Calling an article out for trying to paint a franchise as "failing" "dead" or "on a downfall" is not damage controlling, it is calling out BS.

lellkay1219d ago

Had absolutely zero interest in this expansion.

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140°
9.8

Gears 5 Hivebusters DLC Review - XboxAddict

XBA says: A free expansion for Gears 5 that adds new characters and story.

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xboxaddict.com
spicelicka1347d ago

It's amazing! But the correction should be that it's included with Gamepass, it's not free otherwise. It's so cheap though you can't go wrong.

iplay1up21347d ago

Such a great game! This add on looks fantastic on Series X.

Einhander19711347d ago

Yes its amazing, played on my Series S, hopefully we will get more DLC like this. Great introduction to new characters in the Gears universe.

autobotdan1347d ago

It was great DLC chapter. Outstanding

Gaming4Life19811347d ago

I had no idea this dlc was going to be this good but i cant stop playing. Non stop action that never lets up.

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60°
8.0

Gears 5 Hivebusters DLC Review - Busting Makes Me Feel Good | Thumb Culture

Microsoft shows off the power of the Xbox Series X with Gears 5 Hivebusters, the free DLC that comes with Game Pass. Jay @ TC Takes a look into the DLC

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thumbculture.co.uk
gamer78041379d ago (Edited 1379d ago )

Fantastic game, was a blast to play in coop. Loved all the new characters.

BandarHub1379d ago

Hivebusters is a very refreshing DLC