Best Co-Op Game of 2019
Winner: Gears 5
Guides Editor Chris Jecks: One of my personal favorite games to check out this year has been Gears 5. Embarking on the campaign, diving into the PvP multiplayer, or taking on endless waves of the Swarm alongside friends in Horde has taken up plenty of the tail-end of my 2019. But for as great as Gears 5 is when you’re playing solo, everything gets that little bit better with friends.
Gears 5 ups the ante when it comes to co-op play compared to its predecessors. Its campaign can be played with up to two friends which sees Kait, JD, Del, Marcus, and trusty bot Jack take the fight back to the Horde by getting the Hammer of Dawn satellites back online.
Not all players will assume equal roles though, as the third player will always take on robot handyman Jack to rip open doors, grab weapons from the battlefield, and deal their own form of justice with shock and cryo weapons.
Once you’ve wrapped up the campaign, there’s plenty more to dive into alongside your friends. The standard PvP multiplayer makes for one of the most enjoyable tactical shooter experiences you can play on the Xbox One right now, with an eclectic mix of maps and modes to keep things fresh.
Its Horde mode is back and stronger than ever with more defined character classes and roles within the team. It means the whole thing becomes a more strategic experience.
You’ll need to coordinate the use of your character abilities, pick characters that complement one another, and generally work as a team to come out on top over 50 ever-increasingly difficult waves of enemies.
Finally, you’ve got the newest addition to the Gears stable of modes: Escape. The mode places players at the heart of a Swarm Hive with nothing but a Snub Pistol and a handful of rounds.
It’s then down to you to work with your friends to fight your way through countless Swarm and various sections of the Hive before the poison gas from your planet bomb catches up with and kills you.
With a map creator and the ability to play custom-created content, Escape provides an endless conveyor belt of bite-sized co-op content to munch through one evening with friends.
Gears 5 isn’t just one of the best games you can play solo in 2019, but without a doubt the finest and most comprehensive co-op experience to release this year.
