Gears of War community takes aim at ‘disastrous’ premium content costs

The Coalition’s latest entry into the Gears of War franchise is being torn apart by dedicated fans that are enraged over the current costs of downloadable content. 

Since its release in September of 2019, Gears 5 proved to be the most successful launch for Microsoft throughout the current console generation.

Despite being heavily criticized by popular content creators, the Gears of War community rallied around the latest release. Following an initially positive reception however, it appears as though the developers have gone overboard with extraordinarily expensive post-launch content.

Being labeled as “worse than a Free To Play game,” Reddit user ‘TurianGhost’ broke down the costs of each and every downloadable item in the game and tallied the egregious costs. 

Gears of War 4 also featured a great deal of expensive cosmetic items.

Cosmetic items in Gears 5 are unlocked through a premium currency known as Iron. There are only two ways to acquire this currency in-game. Completing three daily challenges will net you a small amount of Iron or a cosmetic item outright if luck is on your side.

• Read more: Dr Disrespect explains why he’s changed his mind on Gears 5

The only other way to accrue Iron in Gears 5 is to purchase it. Bundles range from $4.99 for 500 Iron to $99.99 for 12,500 Iron. For reference, a number of premium items in the game exceed the 1000 Iron mark.

In total, after 10-weeks of vanity items being added to the game, it now costs $750 to complete the collection and keep up to date with all the latest. That’s just under a thousand dollars of skins and visual alterations for Triple-A game, developed by a large-scale studio, that released at a full price of $60.

A look at the micro-transactions in Gears 5

As Reddit user ‘YouAreSalty‘ expressed, “calling it $750 ‘worth’ of content seems so wrong,” due to the fact that all post-launch content thus far has been purely cosmetic.

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Fortunately, it was revealed post-launch that all additional modes and maps would be implemented at no extra costs. Despite this however, with the constant influx of new cosmetics, it seems as though the community is growing tired of having to wait for substantial content to be introduced.

With how frustrated the Gears of War community appears to be just weeks after launch, perhaps Dr Disrespect’s initial argument was indeed on point.