Starting August, Every New XBox One Will Come With Gears Of War
By now you know that a remake of the original Gears of War is coming to XBox One. What you didn’t know if that if you don’t have an XBox One yet, you’ll be getting this remake for free — as long as you can wait until August 25th. That’s when Microsoft will start bundling in a free digital copy of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition with all XBox One models currently on the market.
The bundle will include a 500GB XBox One, a code to download the game, one wireless controller, a special multiplayer skin for Cole and access to the Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta, which begins sometime in 2016. It’ll all cost you $349.99, the same price as an XBox One without the game in it.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that the Gears of War remake won’t include Horde Mode. Speaking at SDCC, co-creator Rod Fergusson explained his logic: they could have added the mode, but then Gears of War “would become too much like one of its sequels.” Oooookay. I would have accepted an answer like “adding too much content that wasn’t there would turn this from a remaster into a remake and jack up the cost of the purchase.” That might still be true.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition launches August 25, the same day the bundle becomes available.