Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Deluxe Version, Opening Cinematic Revealed

It's a good day to be a Gears of War fan.

Microsoft and developer The Coalition on Thursday made a number of announcements about Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, including the first details on a Deluxe Edition and bonus content. Microsoft also released the game's opening cinematic and revealed that the game was developed in under a year.

First, the Ultimate Edition--which has now "gone gold," meaning development is done--is available to preorder and preload from the Xbox Store. Everyone who preorders the standard $40 game or its just-announced $60 Deluxe edition will also receive "exclusive" skins and characters, including:

• Standard: Adam Fenix and Civilian Anya multiplayer skins; animated Imulsion weapon skin for multiplayer
• Deluxe: Deluxe Weapon Skin Pack, which includes 10 different animated weapon skins and 36 standard weapon skins; Civilian Marcus Fenix and Aaron Griffin multiplayer characters.

Microsoft also today published the opening cinematic for the Ultimate Edition. As you may remember from 2006, the video sets up the game's overall story, beginning with the events of Emergence Day. The cinematic looks better now than it did then, thanks to running on more powerful hardware.

In addition, the next installment in Microsoft's "Remastering Gears of War" behind-the-scenes video series is now available. One of the interesting notes from the video comes from executive producer Mike Crump, who said a project the size and scale of the Ultimate Edition would normally take about 2-3 years to complete. But The Coalition finished the game in under ten months by working with "a number of different partners," including teams from six countries and four continents.

We already knew that Brink developer Splash Damage was working on the game, but the others were not mentioned.

Microsoft will release new chapters in the video series every week up until the Ultimate Edition's release next month. The Xbox One version of the Ultimate Edition launches August 25 for $40. Also on that date, Microsoft will release a new $350 Xbox One bundle that includes a copy of the game.

The PC edition, meanwhile, is coming sometime later.

Everyone who buys the Ultimate Edition on Xbox One will receive access to the Gears of War 4 beta, which begins in spring 2016.