So, I´ve played Horde yesterday at Gamescom.
I was able to play till round 11 or 12 with four other players, of which one was staff I believe (One player was host and was stopping the game and restarting when our time was up).
If anybody played the techtest, then you will know how shooting and movement feels like in Gears 5.
One thing I noticed, was that the enemies were kinda bullet spongy. A normal Swarm grenadier seemed to take quite some damage before dying. They appeared to take in way more damage than in Gears 4 on normal difficulty. Non-infected DB´s are back and as in Gears 4, the first few waves were only DBs. Similiar make-up to Gears 4 so far. The Pouncers are back too but they seem to be actually not as bullet spongy as in Gears 4. Kestrel is back as a boss.
The new map, which I believe is named Vasgar, is quite well done and looks great. It seems to be a map based in a region, that is probably based on real-life middle east. The writing that can be found on the terminals etc. reminds me of arabic writing, though it seems to be a former UIR country or atleast the UIR was somehow in the country.
Now to the characters. As TC announced, the are no classes anymore but heroes, similiar to games like Overwatch. I played as JD, since he got to use the Lancer GL. You can´t pick double characters, so you most likely won´t see two JDs in one match. Overall, the Ultimate took some time to load, I think mine was ready around every three waves. Fortifications work kinda similiar to Gears 4, but they changed some of the button-layouts and you can now rotate automatic turrets to face into the direction you want them to. Overall, that´s as much as it was possible for me to observe in 15 minutes. Generally, one needs to play Horde for a longer time, to form a proper opinion. However, generally, my impressions are way more positive than I expected. It´s fun to use the ultimates and the new weapons are fun to use. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, you can spend your power on upgrades, that you can acquire between the waves. Stuff such as “increase on critical damage” etc. Quite a nice idea, as everybody gets power, when one person picks it up. So, you don´t share the power like in Gears 4. Overall, it´s much more comfortable now, since everyone get´s power when one player picks it up.
Generally, it wasn´t very hard to play, but you were punished pretty fast, if you went too far away from your group, as enemies are relentless.
That´s all I got in 10-15 minutes of playtime. I wasn´t able to experience mid-wave bossfights or to use the new forge, as no one placed it on the map.
Fixed it.
