We recently had the opportunity to speak with Gears Tactics Design Director Tyler Bielman about the upcoming title. We jumped straight in and asked him about developing Gears Tactics as a PC title rather than for Xbox One. He told us that the genre feels like one that is more at home on PC and that there are lots of benefits that come with developing a game for PC.
Bielman said “Gears Tactics was built from the ground up as a PC experience” which allows players to get the most they can from the game visually.
“The game was made by PC gamers, for PC Gamers,” he explained.
Gears Tactics
Watching gameplay footage, you can see that using a mouse and keyboard is the optimal way to play. Playing with a controller would clearly work but it wouldn’t be as fast or efficient. Given that you can use KBAM on Xbox One though, that is an issue that could be solved.
It becomes clear that PC was prioritised in this instance when Bielman starts talking about the graphical options included in the game. Players will be able to change settings for a whole range of things, including;
- Mesh Complexity
- Variable Rate Shading
- Async Compute
- Refractions
- Sub Surface Scattering
- Depth of Field
- Motion Blur
- Bloom Style
- Lens Flare
- Ambient Occlusion
- Anti-Aliasing
- Texture Detail
- Texture Streaming
- Cone Step Mapping
- Shading Quality
- Volumetric Fog
- Planar Reflections
- Dynamic Shadows
- Vertical Sync
- Max FPS
- …and more
These options just aren’t available for console versions of games and being developed for PC first allows Gears Tactics to be as visually impressive as possible. Once that’s been achieved, it can be ported to Xbox One.
That way, both PC and Xbox One players get the best experience possible.
Gears Tactics launches for PC on April 28, 2020.
