- Difficulty
- Casual, Normal, Hardcore, Insane. It starts on Normal; The Coalition built it for Hardcore. Only three achievements need Insane.
- Co-op
- Two players split-screen on Xbox, up to four online. Difficulty is per player.
- Saves
- Five save slots, and chapter select for any section you have reached.
- Side content
- Collectibles from Act 1. The guides list no Hard Case or secondary objective before Act 2, Chapter 2.
Picking a difficulty
🎚️ Four settings
Casual, Normal, Hardcore and Insane. The game starts you on Normal, but creative director Matt Searcy says it is meant to be played on Hardcore.
⚙️ Settings move the tier
The campaign has more options to adjust difficulty and gameplay than earlier Gears games, and The Coalition says changing some of them moves your difficulty tier to match. On a run meant to count for Insane, leave them alone.
🤝 Per player in co-op
Each player picks their own difficulty, so a veteran on Insane and a newcomer on Normal can share a campaign.
💀 Insane can wait
Three achievements need Insane. The guides suggest a first run on a lower setting to learn where the collectibles and Hard Cases are, then Insane with that knowledge.
Co-op, before you invite anyone
- Split-screen is two players on Xbox Series X|S only, from one copy. PC has no split-screen.
- Online co-op is up to four players, each with their own copy or Game Pass. Online play needs a Game Pass tier that includes online multiplayer, sold separately (Xbox store listing).
- Everyone picks one of the four Bravo Squad members — Marcus, Dom, Mags or Lucas — and all four are open from the start. Solo, the rest are AI.
- The host sets the lobby public or private and can tag it for play style and voice chat. Only the host can pause.
- On Steam you only need to link a Microsoft account to invite players on Xbox or the Xbox app.
- You're My Brother needs every act finished in co-op, so if a friend is joining, start the campaign together.
Cover and movement: what changed
🧱 More kinds of cover
Low-ground cover has you hunker behind low walls and debris, and drop prone when the top of your cover is shot away. Cover gaps — under a truck, through a hole in a wall — can be ducked or slid through.
🏃 Sprint, slide, jump
The sprint opens with a nod to the old roadie run. You can slide out of a sprint and shoot while sliding, jump gaps and climb ledges and vehicles. Cover is on A, sprint on a left stick click, and vault and jump on Y.
🎯 Bullets travel
Every projectile has travel time, so at long range you lead your target. You can swap shoulders while aiming.
🔄 Active Reload
The bar now sits under the reticle by default and can be moved back to the top right. The Gnasher and the Breechshot reload a round at a time, so you can stop and fire after one or two.
🩸 The downs counter
When you go down but not out, a counter shows how many downs you have left before the next one kills you.
🪚 Boomers and heavy weapons
Boomers can be chainsawed once their health is low. You can rip heavy weapons off turret bases and move with them, more slowly.
Worth doing as you go
- Listen for the COG Omen sting: a collectible is close. A Hard Case gets a pop-up instead, and the Tac-Com shows both; in chapters with a map, they are marked on it.
- Accept secondary objectives when they are offered. Some you are pointed to, others you only find by following a firefight or a conversation. They pay in weapon mods.
- Some collectibles and Hard Cases only open after a main objective. If one is on the map but out of reach, come back later in the chapter.
- Chapters have points of no return. In Act 2, Chapter 2, Hold the Line, the gate to Charlie Squad and the hotel at the end are two of them: clear what is around first.
- Supply Caches are where you change loadout and fit mods. A weapon you have picked up, such as the Gut-Puncher, is then available at them.
- The War Journal lists the collectibles still missing, act by act and chapter by chapter, and chapter select takes you back for them.
Cross-checked
Cross-checked on 5 October 2026 against The Coalition's gameplay post on gearsofwar.com, the Xbox store listing, Matt Searcy's comments on difficulty as reported by Gfinity and Eurogamer, Wikipedia's article, and the walkthroughs and guides of Game8, NoobFeed, games.gg, Gamer Social Club, Patchcrazy and TechWiser, with HowToVideoGame for the save slots. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and what the sources do not describe is not on this page.