Gears of War 4 July Update brings Superstar Cole and Windflares to Multiplayer

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Xbox Wire.

We’ve had a ton of fun watching Gears fans getting hands on with the Rise of the Horde update over the past month. It’s been fascinating to see our fans discover new ways to conquer 50 waves using New Skills, while taking on the added challenge of Inconceivable and Ironman difficulties!

While you’re out there collecting the new Rise of the Horde Skills and levelling up your Classes, the Gears of War 4 train keeps rolling with our July Update! On top of our two maps for the month – including some added Windflare surprises – there’s a whole bunch of events and characters to collect.

Read on all for the info!

New Maps

Raven Down

The fast and furious action of Gears of War 1’s Raven Down is crash landing into Gears of War 4! Set on a tight intersection with a crashed King Raven in the middle, combat on this map is up close and personal – frags can help you to get an edge in combat, but this map is all about your core Gears combat skills.

Reclaimed Windflare

The peaceful farm setting of Reclaimed is about to be ravaged by a Windflare! Previously only available in the campaign experience, Windflares are incredibly powerful storms that culminate in the fearsome stormwall with lightning bolts that can fry you in seconds.

As you play in Versus and Horde, the Windflare will periodically roll into the map, challenging you to battle your enemies and the elements. You’ll need to master movement in the strong winds and judge your aim with projectile weapons well in the wind. As the stormwall hits, prepare to dodge lightning bolts that target players – look for the telltale sizzle to know when to move!

Future Updates

Before the Locust attacks, Cole was a hugely famous Thrashball star – long before he was a star in the COG battling the Locust (and now the Swarm). This month, you can relive Cole’s glory day self with the release of Superstar Cole in an upcoming Gear Pack!

Keeping in the off-duty theme, this month’s Craftable Character will be Civilian Anya – find her early in our Gear Packs before her release later this month.

Continuing this month, there’s a bunch of new events for Gears fans to sink their chainsaw teeth into:

• Raven Down 24/7: To celebrate the release of the ever popular Raven Down, we’ll be running Raven Down 24/7 across multiple game modes later this month!
• More for Horde Players: We recently released a new variant of Horde called ‘Anything Goes’, which pits you against 50 waves of randomized enemies. We’ll have another new Horde event for fans to take on later this month.

Stay tuned for more news, including the first information on Ranked Season 2, coming throughout July. See you online Gears fans.