How many collectibles are there?

Gears of War 4 has 50 collectibles, and they're all hidden in the campaign.

How do I know what collectibles I've found?

If you're playing lone wolf-style and trying to find collectibles by yourself, Gears of War 4's Campaign menu can help you narrow your search. As you can see in the image above, it displays the number of collectibles scattered throughout each act and chapter.

Grid View

Choose War Journal from Gears of War 4's main menu, and the last tab on the right takes you to the Collectibles submenu. There, you can see everything you've collected (and what you haven't, too). It's also a good place to read up on descriptions, which often offer a bit of insight into the world.

What do collectibles look like?

Gears of War 4's collectibles blink white every couple of seconds, wiping from right to left. In that sense, they behave a lot like ammo crates, letting you know that something important is ahead. When you get close, you'll also see a magnifying glass icon hovering over the collectible.

Once you identify the location of a collectible, all you have to do is approach it and press X to pick it up.

Where can I can find collectibles?

Grid View

There are a few places where collectibles tend to show up, and those tend to fall into a couple of categories.

Some Gears of War 4 collectibles hang around on bodies — corpses, really. Those of you returning to Gears of War will recognize those as COG tags. They're like dog tags in the real world, except that … they're called COG tags. The other big category of collectible is, well, pieces of paper. Checks desks, shelves and on the ground.

If you can't find a collectible, consider replaying the level. You'll have the advantage of memory, and you can either set it to Casual if you're just about finding things or crank up the difficulty on your way to proving your mettle.

When should I look for collectibles?

Whenever there's a lull in the action.

Gears of War 4's basic formula for chapters goes like this:

1. Enter an area.
2. Flight and/or just walk and talk.
3. Leave for the next area.

It's best to find collectibles at some point during the second step. If you find yourself in a new area with the freedom to walk around — before or after a fight — use that as your opportunity to scour the map for collectibles.

Must Read

Gears of War 4 review

The three collectibles in Act 1: Chapter 4. 'A Few Snags' are the best early game example of walking, talking, fighting . At the beginning, your hand is glued to the fabricator. Your goal is to walk to a certain part of the map. After that, you have to walk to another point on the map, which triggers a cutscene. After that, the the fight begins.

Sure, you could grab the collectibles as you're lugging around the fabricator. Or you could look for collectibles as you're fighting wave after wave of DeeBee robots. But it doesn't make a ton of sense to look for collectibles when you can only walk super slowly or while bullets are flying at you. Instead, run around during the lull in the action between when you set the fabricator down and you begin the fight.

Likewise, the Maternity Annex building in Act 1: Chapter 1. 'The Raid' is good early game example of finding a collectible when all you're doing is walking.