A PC version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was announced last June at E3 2015 without a firm release date, and lo and behold it launched today. It's available on the Windows Store for Windows 10 PCs for $29.99.
The PC version trails the Xbox One's release by about six months. A post on Xbox Wire announcing the launch said "a whole ot of work under the hood" was necessary to make the PC launch worthwhile. As a result, says Microsoft, "medium" performance settings will net an audiovisual experience similar to what has been seen on the Xbox One version, which launched in August.
Higher-performance machines will deliver 60 frames-per-second and 4K resolution video in the single-player campaigns, "and stay quite close to that benchmark in multiplayer," Microsoft says.
Here are the game's specs:
- Minimum: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 2.7Ghz / AMD FX 6-core, Memory: 8 GB RAM (2 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R7 260x / NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12
- Recommended: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i5 @3.5GHz+ / AMD FX 6-core, Memory: 8 GB RAM (4 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R9 290X / NVIDIA GTX 970, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12
- Ideal: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i7 @4GHz+ / AMD FX 8-core, Memory: 16 GB RAM (6 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R9 390X / NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12
Gears of War Ultimate Edition is a remaster of the landmark 2006 shooter for Xbox 360. For more, see Polygon's review of it for Xbox One; we scored it an 8.0.