Gears of War 4 Is "Darker" But Not Survival Horror, Dev Says

There has been some talk about how Gears of War 4's story will be "darker" and more in line with the tone of the first games. While this will apparently be true, producer Rod Fergusson has now made it clear that the upcoming Xbox One game is still very much an action game that fans will feel familiar with.

Responding to some creepy-looking Gears of War images, someone on Twitter asked Fergusson, "Is this going to be a horror game now??"

Fergusson stressed that, no, this will not be the case. "No--we're not survival horror. We just wanted a darker tone. We're still an action game," he explained.

Back in August 2015, Fergusson said Gears of War 4 is aiming to tell a more intimate, personal, and morally ambiguous narrative than the past few games in the series. He explained that while the first Gears of War was a suspenseful game about the dangerous creatures in the universe, Gears of War 3 was too focused on the war between humans and Locusts and lost that tension.

Developer The Coalition is thus attempting to bring Gears 4 back to its roots by evoking, in his words, "that sense of mystery, things going bump in the night."

As previously revealed, Gears of War 4's story, which follows Marcus Fenix's son JD and two other new characters, takes place over the span of 24 hours. It's also been confirmed that Gears of War 4's co-op is limited to two players locally and online, and not four, as was the case with Gears of War 3.

The sequel's resolution and frame rate has also been confirmed, and The Coalition has teased that a PC version is "possibly' in the works.

Gears of War 4 will launch in full in fall 2016, but you won't have to wait that long to check it out, as a beta will be held in April. The game will also be playable at PAX East in Boston next month.