Gears of War Ultimate Edition 5 GB Mandatory Update Detailed

Gears of War Ultimate Edition is getting a big update soon that will offer improvements to things like Boomshot hit registration and matchmaking time, developer The Coalition has announced. The update, which is 5 GB and must be downloaded to play online, is due to launch February 23, at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST.

On the subject of Boomshot hit registration, The Coalition acknowledged that the weapon has seen "inconsistent performance." With this latest update, the Boomshot should resolve an issue where the weapon failed to deal damage to an enemy when fired at their feet.

The Ultimate Edition update also changes things up such that kills in social playlists will now count towards the game's "Seriously..." achievement. Previously, only kills in Competitive mode counted towards the challenge, which is awarded when you kill 10,000 players in online matches. This change will not be retroactively applied to kills you already achieved, however.

To mark the changes to "Seriously...", a one-week playlist called "Seriously TDM" will go live tomorrow, February 23, and run through 12 PM PST / 3 PM EST on February 29.

Here are some other changes coming with the new patch, as written by The Coalition:

• Addressed some matchmaking issues that caused long wait times
• Improvements to hit registration on downed enemies (sponging)
• Small improvements to the Left Trigger Issue
• Fixed hit detection when shooting an enemy in cover against the top pillars on Clocktower
• Removed POI on Right Stick for Alternate Control Scheme
• Bug fixes and general improvements

Additionally, the new Ultimate Edition update makes some playlist changes, one of which is increasing the XP that's handed out for playing Execution.

"Execution is a mode that can be highly rewarding, but also extremely punishing," The Coalition said. "To better reward players who take on the challenge of Execution, we've increased the XP gain in the mode significantly."

Additionally, Blitz has moved from Competitive to Social, while a new Competitive Team Deathmatch playlist has been added.

"We've been excited to see such a positive reaction to the new, faster Blitz mode," the studio explained. "We wanted to address community feedback about quitters impacting games--as such, we've moved Blitz to Social so join-in-progress backfilling can replace any teammates who quit. To ensure fans of respawn gametypes have an option to play a competitive matchmaking experience, we've added an additional TDM playlist to the game in the Competitive category."

Other playlist changes include the return of Warzone as a permanent playlist, while Assassination is also back, but only for a limited time. For more on the upcoming Ultimate Edition changes, you can check out this detailed post on the game's website.

This is Title Update 2 for Ultimate Edition. The first was released in September 2015, about a month after the game's launch. That update introduced changes to make the Gnasher gun more predictable, among other things.

The Ultimate Edition launches later this year for PC, while Gears of War 4 is due out this fall for Xbox One.