Gears 5 Update 4.2 Will Bring Back Horde Frenzy

The next major title update for Gears 5, title update 4.2 will release on March 10. Along with various fixes, it's also bringing back a fan-favorite mode from Gears of War 4. The mode, Horde Frenzy, is a half-length version of Horde mode that cranks up the intensity.

It's a 12-wave mode, which should take players about half an hour to play through, and every four waves there's a boss encounter--a mini-boss at 4, then a mini-boss and a boss at 8 and 12. You'll start with more power than in regular Horde mode, but it'll also ramp up faster. It's shorter than regular Horde, but beating it will still be a challenge.

Horde Frenzy will be available across the Exhibit, Forge, and District maps at first, but once Operation 3 drops, it will be available across all maps. The first week of Horde Frenzy will also be a week of Free Boost and Double Character XP across all Horde modes.

The update will make some other changes to the game, too, including a few basic fixes and balance changes. Here's the full list.

MODES

• Introducing Horde Frenzy! 12 wave Horde available in matchmaking on 3 maps.*
• Escape Hive ‘The Descent’: Balancing pass to address some of the huge difficulty spikes during the Hive. Replaced the Iron Man mutator with Ammo Starvation.
• Escape Hive ‘The Gauntlet’: Balancing pass to address some of the huge difficulty spikes during the Hive. Reduced the number of overall Bastions. Replaced weapons lockers with ammo crates.

GAMEPLAY

• Multiple fixes for the Boomshot to dramatically improve consistency. This includes updates to address specific materials that could block Boomshot damage when a shot lands beside / behind an opponent, increases to the initial explosion damage and decreasing the application time of damage from the Boomshot.
• Flashbang hitmarkers will now only appear if the user has been stunned by the Flash
• Capping and breaking rings will now be worth 100 points. We recognized our points were undervaluing the impact of capturing or breaking rings, and we’re continuing to look at further improvements we can make to scoring all up.*
• Lowered the number of players needed to start FFA to 6 (from 12) to improve the matchmaking experience for lower population regions at off-peak times.*

AUDIO

• Fixed an issue with Flash Bangs that caused audio to be louder than usual
• Fixed an issue that could cause audio distortion in Horde when a Kestrel or Trishot fired

PC

• Additional crash fix
  
  

Gears 5 apparently has extra enhancements on the way, too, although we're not sure what they'll look like yet. Developer The Coalition recently lost its studio head, Rod Fergusson, to Blizzard.