Holy fuck, is it finally going to come?!?

How's everyone doing in Sea of Thieves? I'm currently 27/22/19 without grinding. Just sailing around with a buddy doing voyages, exploring and meeting other crews. We've yet to clear a skeleton fort and I haven't fought the Kraken even though I've sailed almost 500km.

A friend of mine bought the game on PC. Hadn't talked to him in over 10 years and now we've been sailing for tens of hours. I'm excited about the new content, especially events.

I've hardly played any of it since it launch through a combination of a short break from gaming and been away from home a while maybe only done about 2-3 voyages :( I was planning to put some time into it this week gone but ended up been busy and never got around to it, Sounds like you've been having fun on the seas :P

7th gen, sure there were a lot of third person shooters, 8th gen though not so many, especially ones like Gears. Gears was never mainstream, sure they sold millions of copies but compared to Cod or Halo they're not even close to being such phenomenal franchises. Gears 5 should change up their formula, that's why Gears 4 despite their warm reception is pretty much forgotten, it's a mere retread of 2006. 

Plus cover shooters are a dead genre, it is very lazy gameplay design and limits freedom of combat at least in campaign. Where Gears shines is definitely the wallbounce mechanic which is pretty much a must learn in multiplayer dismissing casuals due to its pretty steep learning curve. The game is not casual friendly, I remember in one of my early matches having 9 kills and 40 deaths, ugh, after about 30 hours I became somewhat decent. (Wallbouncing was challenging to learn) 

Moreover, its community is one of the most toxic ones I've ever come across, sure COD and Halo have 13 year old screamers but Gears are a lot more rougher and older and are really unpleasant, hands down worst community behind LoL, extremely edgy and insulting. 

Gears may be critically acclaimed and is financially successful but it was never really a mainstream thing and it never will be if it sticks to the 2007. It has a very scant youtube presence too, It never has had a really large following either., not even close to COD. Hell even Halo which is on a decline at least has a very much alive multiplayer presence. 

So let me get this straight....a franchise that's sold aroud 27 million or so units between 5 games (one of which is a remake, and another a spin off) isn't - and never has been - mainstream? 

Does that mean no game that moves less than 7 million units is mainstream? 

Also, just to be sure I completely understand you, you're saying that because it isn't - and never has been - mainstream, the series must be fundamentally altered in attempt to make it so? Does that mean every other game/franchise out there must be taken back to the drawing board until everything is mainstream, or just Microsoft's games? 

I'm sorry, but really all you're putting out here is "I'm over 3rd person cover shooters, so everyone else should be over them too."

Everyone is over Gears of War, it has a dead playerbase, all third person shooters this gen are either open world (GTA 5, Division, MGSV) or have engaging and well written stories with great vertical movement, stealth and platforming elements (Uncharted, Last of Us). 

And look I'm not saying that Gears isn't financially successful but as a household name it is severely outmatched by several others making it mostly forgotten due to its outdated gameplay design. Even if you don't agree about Gears' outdated gameplay design, it is undeniable that the IP and franchise do not have a large following and is in fact not mainstream, which can all be rectified if it changes up its formula.

I'm just saying Gears should modernise itself and not be stuck in 2006, cover shooters are so limited and very outdated in terms of gameplay design, it lacks freedom and lacks variety and this is especially more so with gears of war since movement is restricted to the ground.

But Gears is the cover shooter, I don't think they have to stray from that necessarily, they just have to freshen things up a bit. Though I still need to play the series to know exactly what it's like.

You do realize that the Division is also a cover shooter, right? The fact that it's also open world doesn't magically make it not a cover based shooter. You spend more time running around, because being set in an open world gives you a lot of space to run around, but actual gameplay takes place in cover....on the ground. I should know, I love that game, and Gears aside it has the best 3rd person cover gameplay I've experienced. It may even be slightly better.

Now, I do agree that moving forward, Gears will have to bring something new to the table. Everything must evolve, and sometimes revolutionize itself over time in order to stay relevant. You can't stay stagnant, and I'll readily admit that Gears 4 simply didn't bring anything new to the table. In some regards they actually went backwards, as the fan favorite Horde mode devolved into little more than building 3-4 super OP turrets and holding down the trigger for half an hour or so. The core gameplay of Gears though, the cover shooting you claim is so outdated, isn't the issue. At least not in my mind. Even if you personally don't enjoy it, or think it's limiting in it's mainstream appeal (which again, I disagree with....last I checked Gears 4 has sold more copies than say, Overwatch has on Xbox), do you really want to see MS turn Gears into some clone, or amalgamation of the absolutely most mainstream games currently on the market? For what? In the hopes of suddenly being the hot new kid on the block again? Outside of CoD, and BF, the two biggest mainstream shooters on the planet, how many of the current "hot topic" games in that space have even been around for more than a minute? Come back and tell me how much better Gears could be doing when some of them have been around for more than a decade, and still got millions of people interested in them at all.

Gears may not currently be the king of the 3rd person shooter like it used to be, but you don't rip up the book and start from scratch when your formula has a proven track record.

You were on thin ice before, and now you are saying Gears was never mainstream!?! You really just need to stop talking.

The multiplayer in Gears 4, gameplay wise, is good. The game isn't suppose to be casual friendly. They just ruined it was the stupid microtransaction's, loot boxes, and season pass. 

I'm 15/11/10 I took a break after launch and just started playing it again. Very cool game, I remember when I had zero interest in it but Rare changed my mind.