Ranking Every Xbox One Exclusive From Worst To Best

6. Gears Of War 4 & Ultimate Edition

Gears Of War 4
Microsoft

Mimicking the uncertainty that befell Halo when Bungie retired its relationship with Microsoft, Epic Games, too, desired to move out of the publisher's shadow and begin anew.

Gears of Wars' fate looked grim in light of the split until Microsoft acquired the series' rights from Epic, rebranded Black Tusk Studio as The Coalition to lead Gears of War 4's development and placed Rod Fergusson, former Epic employee and lead designer of past Gears titles, at its head.

The promising setup inevitably resulted in a sequel worthy of its title, featuring a new threat and generation of characters to carry the torch as humanity's protectors. Yes, The Coalition could absolutely have taken more risks with its soft reboot, but as the first entry in a new trilogy, nobody can blame the studio for playing it safe for the initial transition.

Gears 4 provided a perfect balance of old vs. new, but the sequel will need to shift in favour of the latter if its to continue that strong initial momentum.

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.