Hello everyone!

The time has come to talk about Operation 8! This post will cover everything you can expect to see when the operation goes live on Tuesday, August 3rd.

Trailer

Before you dive into the full post, check out the Operation 8 trailer!

Characters

Bernadette Mataki

Sergeant Bernadette "Bernie" Mataki is a legendary sharpshooter who fought for the COG in the Pendulum and Locust Wars. With a caustic sense of humor and an unerring sense of aim, Bernie is a relentless force on the battlefield.

Ketor Vrol

A crusading zealot with a deep-seated hatred of humanity, Ketor Vrol is one of the first Locust and served Queen Myrrah alongside RAAM and Ukkon. Vrol is a high priest of the Locust Horde who leads his people in worshipping the Trinity of Worms, who created the sacred birthright of the Locust: the Hollows.

New Map Addition

Ritual

The Weilehan people once gave tribute to the Wakaatu at these ancient ruins. Controlling both the catacombs and the altar is key to avoiding unexpected flanks.

PvP

In Operation 7, we introduced Competitive mode, bringing with it seven total playlists, each with exclusive Leaderboards.

We're happy to announce that due to overwhelmingly positive feedback we'll be adding Capture the Flag as our eighth and final competitive mode to Gears 5 for Operation 8 going forward. This mode will also have exclusive banners to unlock as well as a new leaderboard to climb!

Alongside competitive updates, we'll be adding more exclusive competitive rewards, some prototype weapons, and more, let's dive in!

PvP – Competitive Rewards

In Operation 7 we gave away the Heroic Obsidian weapon set, which was awarded in batches if you finished playlists in the top 1000. We are still going to be offering this reward with the same criteria, but we'll be rotating through the weapon groups so that players can earn all the weapon skins without having to grind different playlists.

In addition to the above we're still granting the same top 100/1 rewards as last season but with one change: The Grandmaster Gnasher will be swapped out for the Grandmaster Obsidian Gnasher.

For Season 9 of competitive, we'll then swap the Obsidian Gnasher out for the Grandmaster Bloody Gnasher.

We are also adding new banners to earn for each of the competitive modes in Operation 8 so make sure to keep an eye out for that!

So just to recap, here's how the competitive rewards will now work:

100k points – Playlist Mark – 100k
500k points – Playlist Mark – 500k
1 million points – Playlist Master Banner
If you finish in the top 1,000 – Some weapons from Heroic Obsidian Gnasher set.
If you finish in the top 100[list]
Playlist Grandmaster Banner
Trinity Skorge
Grandmaster Obsidian Gnasher
Golden Heart Bloodspray

If you finish the season as the top player

Golden Gnasher Bloodspray

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PvP – Prototype Weapons

Throughout the development of Gears 5, we prototyped different weapons for inclusion in PvP, but, sadly many of them didn't make it into the game.

In Operation 8 we're going to be adding two prototype weapons to custom matches and events so you can try them out, however, they will not be customizable for skins.

Markza MK2

Back in Gears of War Judgment we released a weapon called the Breechshot. As a prototype, the Markza MK2 exists to replicate that weapon's behavior.

The Markza MK2 is a five-round rifle, with the ability to instantly headshot an enemy, its drawback is a slow rate of fire which can cost the player opportunities or even result in their death.

To try and replicate that Gears of War Judgment feel we've also used the original crosshair that was present for Breechshot, which should help to achieve that same gun feel.

Revive Grenade

The Revive Grenade previously existed as the Stim-Gas Grenade in Gears of War Judgment, featuring the ability to continuously heal players inside the blast radius.

We used that as the inspiration for the Revive Grenade, which can revive Down But Not Out (DBNO) players. We imagine it can be a round changer in objective playlists.

We're incredibly excited to get these out to you and we look forward to seeing how you use them in customs!

PvP – Tweaks

Note: Ping will still appear on this scoreboard, this is just a bot game.

Alongside all the updates above, we have some significant quality of life changes coming to the Versus experience, including some competitive changes.
We're removing the ability to see the PC Icon in Public lobbies across Gears 5. The icon will remain in place for Custom matches to help maintain esports integrity.
We've added an option to add a delay to the expression wheel appearing. , tThis can be toggled from instantly to 5 seconds which should help prevent accidental openings of the wheel while in combat.
You can now toggle off the option to "Yank" a player over cover, sometimes a player will accidentally try to yank while trying to revive a DBNO player against cover which will help prevent this issue from occurring.
We have updated the Scoreboard to provide more meaningful stats across the board for viewers and players.[list]
Execution/Warzone: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, First Bloods, Revives.
KOTH/Control: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, OBJ Kills (any player you kill inside the objective.), Caps/Breaks.
TDM/Dodgeball: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, Kill Streak (this is your current kill streak but will reset at the end of each round or if you die.), Revives.
Guardian: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, Leader Kills, Revives.
Escalation: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, Kill Streak, Caps/Breaks.
Gridiron/Capture the Flag: Kill/Death/Assist, Damage Done, Touchdowns, Denials.

We've made the following changes to competitive mode scoring:

Players who are playing solo will now get a 25% boost to their score at the end of a competitive match (up from 15%)
Players will now receive 5,000 points for a victory in all team-based competitive modes.

We've added the Relic Weapons into the Swap All and Custom Match weapon swaps list.

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PvE

Throughout Gears 5 we have run multiple events across the game for Horde such as Nexus Siege, Escape from Kadar, and more.

We're happy to announce that at the start of Operation 8 we'll be adding all these event modes to Custom Games!

This will mean you can experience the Locust returning with Nexus Siege on a map such as Ephyra or mix it up with the Wakaatu on Ritual!

All the events you can now select from are listed below:

Boss Rush – Survive 10 waves against bosses only.
Escape from Kadar – Survive 10 waves against Niles' creations.
Horde Mania – Survive 25 waves with a short build period.
Horde Roulette – Survive 10 waves of random enemy combinations.
Jingle Juvies – Survive 20 waves of joyous Jingle Juvies.
Mad Man's Monsters – Survive 20 waves against the Mad Man's Monsters.
Nexus Siege – Survive 10 waves of Locust with no Fabricator.
Predator Hunt – Survive 10 waves and battle the Wakaatu with no Fabricator.

Finally, we've also addressed the issues that stopped us from adding Turbine and Atrium to Horde custom games, you can expect to see these in at the start of Operation 8.

Tour of Duty

With a new Operation comes an all-new Tour of Duty with exclusive content to gather. See the full list below!

Basics – 2,000 Gear Coins on completion

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Team Medic	Revive 150 Teammates	All	5
Carnage	Do 10000000 Damage	All	5
Body Count	Get 10000 Eliminations	All	5
Finish Them	Kill 4000 Enemies	All	5
Marksman	Hit 500 Headshots kills	All	5
Executioner	Perform 150 Executions	All	5

Weapons – 2,000 Gear Coins on completion

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Lancer Carnage	Deal 250000 Damage with the Lancer	All	5
Gnasher Body Count	Get 250 Eliminations with the Gnasher	All	5
Pistol Carnage	Deal 150000 Damage with the Snub, Boltok, or Talon	All	5
Big Boom Body Count	Get 100 Eliminations with the Boomshot, Dropshot, or Frag Grenades	All	6
Blazing Carnage	Deal 100000 Damage with the Scorcher or Incendiary Grenades	All	6
Marksman Body Count	Get 100 Eliminations with the Longshot, EMBAR, or Torque Bow	All	6

Tour of Duty Specialist – 3,000 Gear Coins on completion