Gears Of War: Reloaded

Something may be lost in the translation between the original 2006 version of Gears Of War and the considerably prettier, brighter and more sharply textured Reloaded. A solemn, grimy place, where endless battles over scarce resources have resulted only in ever-larger piles of corpses, the world of Gears is perhaps most suitably rendered via the fuzzier, grey-brown colour palette of the first Xbox 360 release. Especially for Marcus Fenix and co, war is hell. You might argue that it ought to look like it.

- Developer Epic Games, The Coalition Publisher Xbox Game Studios Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Original release 2006

And given that you can do it in The Master Chief Collection, released all the way back in 2014, it's a shame that Gears Of War: Reloaded doesn't give you the option to flip between the classic and overhauled visuals. That way, it would feel even more like a celebration of the original game. But if Reloaded gets a new generation of people to try Gears for the first time – or even provides series veterans with an excuse to take it for another spin – that might be enough to justify its changes to the original aesthetic.