I played Gears of War: Reloaded on PS5, and it felt surprisingly natural

I wasn’t quite sure how to feel the first time I booted up Gears of War: Reloaded on my PS5.

I was an Xbox kid and have fond memories of playing Gears of War co-op with my brother when we got an Xbox 360.

More than Halo, it has been the shooter franchise I heavily associate with Xbox as a marquee exclusive. But now, it’s the latest Xbox franchise to lose its exclusivity.

Gears of War: Reloaded is the first game in the series to be released on a PlayStation console.

While I was somewhat surprised by and unsure how to feel about the PS5 version when it was announced, any worries I had dissipated as soon as I started playing the game.

Gears of War: Reloaded takes full advantage of the PS5

It feels great to play on a DualSense

Gears of War: Reloaded is the latest remaster of the first game in the Gears of War series. The campaign holds up surprisingly well to this day, with its weighty game feel actually standing out in a sea of similar-feeling modern first-person shooters.

I recommend people play Gears of War if they’ve never tried it before, and I’m sure many PS5 owners haven’t.

If you’re worried about the PS5 version somehow being an inferior port, don’t be. All versions of the game now run at 60 frames per second at least and have 4K textures and resolution.

There are no loading screens during the campaign, and HDR support makes this 19-year-old game look crisper than ever.

Although the details in some of the environments and character models obviously aren’t as impressive as they would be in a new game released in 2025, this is the best-looking version of the original Gears of War that you can play.

I also never ran into any sort of performance issues on PS5. Gears of War: Reloaded felt very well-tailored to Sony’s console.

The game takes full advantage of the DualSense controller’s capabilities during the campaign. In-game comms chatter will come in through the DualSense, while adaptive triggers make shooting a gun feel like a weightier action.

Although I didn’t get to test it out pre-release, the PS5 port also features full cross-play and cross-progression with the PC and Xbox Series X versions of the game.

While it’s pretty monumental that Gears of War is available on PlayStation for the first time, the port feels incredibly natural and surprisingly well-tailored to Sony’s platform.

Gears of War: Reloaded isn’t a worse game because it’s now on PS5

Gears of War going multiplatform didn’t impact the game’s quality

There are ample reasons to question Microsoft’s intention to make Xbox a multiplatform gaming publisher. These three questions in particular stick out in my mind:

• Will going multiplatform not allow Xbox games to take full advantage of its own hardware?
• Won’t this cause people to care less about Xbox hardware because there’s no reason to go out of their way to own it?
• Will going multiplatform cause Xbox to lose its identity?

Within the first ten minutes of playing Gears of War: Reloaded on PS5, though, I came to an important realization. I concluded that going multiplatform is more of an esoteric industry-related issue rather than a game-specific one.

As long as the port is well-optimized and compatible with other versions of the game, there’s no real reason to stress about a game you’re playing being on a different console than expected.

The first Gears of War being on a PlayStation console actually has little to no impact on the experience itself outside of the DualSense capabilities.

When I’m having fun playing Gears of War: Reloaded, I’m not thinking about the future of Xbox or the decades-long console rivalry between it and PlayStation. I’m just thinking about which enemy I want to sprint up and chainsaw through next.

Gears of War: Reloaded maintains a high standard for Xbox to PS5 ports

It’s weird that Xbox is going multiplatform, but at least the ports are well-made

When it comes to Microsoft’s plan to release Xbox games across every platform, I do have concerns over its long-term impact on Xbox.

I see the potential it has to really devalue Xbox’s hardware, leading to a future where it’s a brand solely applied to other companies’ products, as is the case with the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.

I worry about the game developers who could potentially lose their jobs if Xbox starts to lose money because of that. But the ball is already rolling in that direction, as there’s clearly not much Xbox fans can do to make Microsoft change course.

For now, all we can do is expect a high standard to be met when Xbox games come to other platforms and hold Xbox accountable if the quality of the games or treatment of their developers worsens.

Thankfully, the ports for games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Forza Horizon 5, and Gears of War: Reloaded have all been really solid so far, and not like self-sabotaged efforts in response to a corporate mandate.

Don’t be too concerned with the fact that Gears of War is now on PS5. Instead, be reminded how amazing this classic Xbox game is.