25 Years after Gears of War 3, spurred by a series of strange disappearances, JD Fenix must embrace his father’s legacy and battle a terrifying new enemy. Learn more at http://www.xbox.com/games/gears-of-war-4

Dynamic resolution scaling (turn on/off, pick a percentage)
Enable async compute
Enable tiled resources
Lock/unlock frame limit
Disable vsync
Field of view
Display performance stats
Character texture detail
World texture detail
Effects texture detail
Lighting texture detail
Texture filtering (up to 16x anisotropic)
Anti-aliasing quality
Temporal AA sharpening
Foliage draw distance
World level of detail
Character level of detail
Motion blur quality
Motion blur intensity
Light shaft quality
Light scattering quality
Lens flare quality
Bloom quality
Shadow quality
Capsule shadow quality
Screen space shadow quality
Ambient occlusion quality
Ambient occlusion intensity
Post process quality
Screen space reflections
Enable environment reflections
Enable refractions
Particle spawn rate
Sharpening
...and a separate menu for "Real-time cinematics settings.

To be fair, of course, I had been spoiled. My first impressions of the game's latest preview build came courtesy of a high-end PC decked out with a GTX 1080 graphics card, an i7 processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a low-latency 4K monitor. With nearly every setting at "Ultra," I was getting a locked 60fps in all modes. Not only that, but these settings were clearly exceeding what the Xbox One could muster, with higher-res textures and much more noticeable bloom and light-contrast effects, along with more object density and more intense particle swarms.

"DirectX 12 is a big part of how we're able to get additional performance out of the PC," Technical Director Mike Raynor told Ars. "The DX12 graphics API takes away a bunch of layers from the developer and hardware. It's letting us have more direct control over what the GPU's doing... We've completely parallelized the rendering system, meaning we're utilizing and running more CPU cores. One big focus we had was to lower the simulation cost to give headroom for the GPU. A lot of games out there have monster GPU but get framelocked because you're CPU bound. There's a huge upper range we support with what we've done."

I also jacked up settings beyond my rig's near-ultra default and dropped the resolution to 1440p, which still looked gorgeous and rocked a 60fps refresh. I didn't have as much luck pushing some of the settings into the menus' crazy-high "insane" setting, which might be because, according to Raynor, that setting has been offered for future systems and SLI power users: "The game will scale with new hardware that will come out," he said. "You need a really high spec to get in there. It looks awesome, but it's very GPU-hungry." (While I couldn't test Raynor's assertions that the game has been optimized to make the most of SLI graphics card performance, he insisted that users would see substantial boosts if they double-card.)

Microsoft is teaming up with Nvidia to give away free copies of Gears of War 4. If you purchase a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 as a graphics card, part of a system, or inside a laptop then you'll get a free copy of Gears of War 4. The promotion runs from today until October 30th, and as the game is Xbox Play Anywhere you'll get a copy of the PC version and Xbox One variant for free.

The Gears community is incredibly special to us. Your loyalty and passion are unmatched, so here's a thank you from us.

If you've played any previous Gears of War title and currently subscribe to Gold (or are a Silver Member that has logged into your Gamertag within the last 12 months), you've earned yourself the following:

EXCLUSIVE LEGACY EMBLEM
The 'First Wave' Emblem is waiting for you now in the Customization menu, featuring a Gear carrying a old COG banner under a new dawn. This special Emblem is exclusive to fans who have played previous Gears games.

BONUS OPERATIONS PACK
Eligible Legacy players also receive a bonus Operations Packs! These Packs contain 1 guaranteed customization item and 4 cards of any type. These will be sent via Xbox Live message - redeem the code provided to claim your pack. Codes expire December 31st 2016.

The Operations Pack will be delivered beginning today and roll out throughout the week. Don’t fret if you have yet to receive your code – they are being sent over time. We will post an update when distribution has finished. Additionally, your Emblem unlock does not require a code and has been unlocked separately to qualifying Gamertags.

As an additional note, simply having booted a previous Gears of War title while connected to Xbox Live qualifies you for the Legacy Reward. You do not need to have any achievements in those titles to qualify.

I don't think the pre-load has started already. I tried to download it yesterday night but the message prompted say "there are something happen on their end".

I pre-ordered my Gear 4 Ultimate Edition thru. MS Store.

I have also received the bonus but the game itself. I can't seems to find the install button for this game. Game not listed in Downloads and updates. There is one "Manage" button on Game store. Clicking the button bring me back to home/Apps/Games page which didn't show Gear of War4. However by selecting show all, it is there but is a ordinary version not Ultimate Edition. Clicking on down arrow button to initiate download, a stupid message prompt out something happened on their end???? What does this mean?

MS Store is the worse store I have ever dealt with. Shit.

I mean the main game not the bonus. I couldn't find the ultimate edition in my hidden list but the ordinary one. And even try to access the ordinary one, it will prompt for the place to download to and then the dreaded message "something happened on our end" try later. Shit

Yap. MS Store is really a mess. Plaque with gazillion of problem and glitches. Downloading reset (literally nothing can be done), Store sign in problem (has to reset my notebook to get it works again), purchase not recognize properly (have to contact MS support to refund and re-purchase to resolve the problem). Shit, no wonder they are loosing out competing with others. Never have a single problem with Steam/Origin/Uplay before. If not before of Gear and Halo series, I ain't touch MS store anymore. Really fed up with it's crappy store.

the chapter and none save option really a pain playing the prologue esp in harder difficulty ,the ai cheats.. so many one hit instant death kill.... and kena restart from whole checkpoint again.... waaa... i kena so many cheap death... and u happen to accidentally pickup a weapon u dont like during checkpoint auto save habis lor u have to  suck with it or restart whole chapter lol... in this day of age i taught manual save was suppose to be a common standard or atleast better auto save points..

The first Gears of War 4 Double XP weekend is now live for Versus Social and Horde!

Which mode will you play first?

had a super fun game yesterday thanks to bro napster2124, for tanking with me haha... can the game support up to 4 person co-op? anyone wanna join us tonight? my friend just started downloading the game via uploaded server gonna take him 2 days hahaha.. will be 3player soon.. 

finished act V..

i only read wikis about GOW2 and GOW3 story since its not available on PC so..

only available on insane mode? "/