Before I begin, I want everyone to know that I am not attacking anyone who enjoys weapon and/or character skins at all, so please keep the conversation civil.
I am genuinely curious as to why so many people put so much stock into weapon and character skins. I have never understood the fascination with them for a couple of reasons:
- They do not change anything about how you play the game. There are no special abilities/power ups that come with them… no new firing rates, special ammo, extra damage, etc. The only thing that changes is literally the way the thing looks.
- It is often categorized as “content” in a game, but as a purely cosmetic item, I don’t feel the word “content” is justified, because again… it does not change how you play the game at all.
When the Hivebusters DLC got announced, I was VERY excited. To me, that is true content added to a game. Sure, I’m still firing the same bullets from the same guns using the same characters that have been there since launch, but there was lore added, new locations, new characters (even if via CGI), and most importantly, a new enemy (Wakaatu). This new enemy even made its way into Horde as a new boss enemy as well, adding to two different modes in the game (Campaign and Horde).
When new maps are added, I too see this as content added. New maps provide new strategies when playing the game in several different modes (some more than others, sure, but different nonetheless).
On top of the fact that weapon and character skins don’t add anything new to the gaming experience (remember, my opinion!), I also don’t understand the need to gather up a bunch of them. You can literally only play as one character at a time and have one weapon skin on a gun at a time. Maybe if TC were to add in a optional randomizer that just picked from what you’ve earned for your character/weapon skins, that would help the situation a bit, but I still go back to my above two points about skins adding nothing meaningful.
So, Gears community… what is it about skins that make them so attractive to you and why do you seem to think that adding tons of skins to the game is enough justification of “supporting the game with content”?