Following on from @Jukesy1992’s topic about his experience playing Gears 5, as shown in this topic created just over a week ago as of the time of writing, I thought I’d come hear to share my own journey through Gears as well as my time playing the latest entry in the series.
So for those who don't know me, I'm SightlessKombat, an accessibility consultant and gamer without sight. I use the term Gamer Without Sight (GWS hereafter) as "legal blindness", often just shortened to being "blind", can and often does include usable and/or residual vision, which I've never had.
You may have seen my name referenced in the June 2018 patch notes for Gears Of War 4, as that was when Fabricator Ping (fab ping for short) was first introduced to the series. This important feature allows a GWS like myself to find the fabricator based on audio cues alone, as well as a little practice at navigating on specific maps. I personally play Forge as it’s almost a straight line from spawn to the fab itself.
Gears Of War 4 was actually where my journey started. After hearing about the series for years and knowing bits and pieces of the story, though not necessarily enough to piece it all together, I managed to get a Gears Of War 4 Xbox One S Limited Edition bundle for review. (to be clear, the reviewing side of things is part of my accessibility consultancy but I won’t go into that here in detail). Needless to say, I really enjoyed the console’s design and, even though I needed to team up with individuals to show me the ropes and to play through the campaign with me, I had a really enjoyable time with my first game in the series.
I’ll summarise the rest of the games a little more briefly though. Gears UE was a great way to experience Gears 1 via co-op, Gears 2 definitely had some really interesting cinematic moments and Gears 3… What an ending to the trilogy.
In fact, I played through Gears 1, 2 3 and Judgment with pretty much the same team which was definitely a great bonding experience.
Then Gears 5 came along, with much more accessibility than even I’d hoped for after playing the game at various events pre-launch and writing a review afterwards. The accessibility improvements over 4 were staggering, setting a bar that has yet to be exceeded as a GWS. Is it flawless or perfect? No, but I really think it has a huge amount of potential. I di have that glitch where the skiff clipped into the environment whilst playing the campaign via CoPilot, but we resolved it and beat the game. I really enjoyed the campaign for the most part and am interested to see what happens.
Now, given that most people want to see footage of just how everything works, given I’m not sure what my trust level is, I’ll just link to my YouTube channel as you can find clips from both Gears 4 and 5, showing how I play Horde in both games and some funny highlights from when I went for the Road to Gears 5 challenges, amongst others. Here’s where you can see footage of, amongst other things, me getting 4 headshots in a row as Fahz in Horde.
If you have any questions about my experience with the franchise, games or otherwise, feel free to ask and I’ll answer what I can. If you want to run with me in pretty much any mode (maybe even ranked for an amusing time), feel free to add me and we’ll try and arrange something.
I look forward to seeing how far I can go with the right accessibility in place in future elements of the franchise games-wise, but also what might happen with comics and the like in terms of readability without sight. Thanks to all those Gears who’ve supported me through my journey so far, you probably know who you are. 
