Gears 5

Like every game in this third-person sci-fi shooter series, this new installment is as exciting and engaging as it is explosive. In Gears 5, Kait has to figure out why her past is giving us such headaches, sometimes literally, while she and the rest of Delta Squad continue to fight the human-hating Swarm. In the story-driven campaign, this takes you to more open areas where you can explore and complete side tasks, though never to the point of making this a Fallout 4-esque role-playing game. You also get some assistance from your robot, Jack, who automatically electrocutes your enemies, and can be told to use offensive and defensive skills such as a helpful radar-like scanner and a blinding flash. Still, it's the shooting that stands out, and in that regard the story mode gives familiar play: frantic firefights against tough enemies who both understand and test your knowledge of flanking and ducking for cover.

Gears 5 also boasts numerous competitive online modes with the campaign. Along with the usual online competitive modes, this adds "Arcade Deathmatch," which is supposed to be for newcomers and casual players, but the addition of character-specific skills and the ability to buy otherwise unavailable weapons mid-match makes it feel like a more elaborate version of "Team Deathmatch." Similarly, the co-op survival mode "Horde," in which you and four teammates have to survive waves upon waves of enemies, also juices things up by giving characters rechargeable special abilities, but that doesn't change much. Instead, the best addition to the game's online slate is "Escape," in which you and two other people have to shoot your way out of an enemy hive where you just planted a gas bomb. While this may sound like it becomes redundant, it's actually nicely varied thanks to some interesting gameplay modifiers and hives that are elaborate and have an assortment of enemies. Thanks to all these additions and changes, Gears 5 is easily both one of the better games in this series and one of the best games of the year.