Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategy: Controls, Executions, Movement, Meatshields

Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategies Guide to help you get familiarized with the game’s different combat concepts i.e. meatshields, executions, etc.

Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategies Guide to help you get familiarized with the game’s different combat concepts.

Things like cover, breaking enemy cover, active reloads, and executions play a vital role in the game’s combat system. If you are new to the series, it is a good idea to have a general understanding of these concepts.

For more help on Gears of War 4, read out our Fortifications Guide, Horde Mode Guide, and Collectibles Guide.

Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategies Guide

In our Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategies Guide, we have detailed different combat concepts that play an important role becoming a better player.

Movement

Crouch Cover
A cover position during which the character is crouched behind an object – low enough to be mantled over – is called low cover or crouch cover. From this position, character can blind fire, toss grenades, lean over, and move along the object.

Remember that a small portion of character’s body is exposed to some enemies. For instance, enemies like Juvies and Trackers can vault over and get around the cover to deal serious amount of damage. Moreover, even in crouch cover, enemies with a Dropshot are a force to be reckoned with.

Character, on the other hand, can vault over the low cover for some simple execution or a shot to the face. Apart from this, you can always run from one low cover to the other if things start to get ugly.

Stand Cover
High cover or stand cover is basically the one in which character is standing behind an object which cannot be mantled over. This provides much better protection against the likes of Juvies and enemies equipped with a Dropshot.

Like with crouch cover, you should be able to move from one cover to another, however, it does limit your field of view to some extent.

Breaking Enemy Cover
When it comes to breaking enemy cover, there are a couple of things you can try. First of all, try to lob a grenade to force the enemy behind the cover to change its position and then get the shot.

If the enemy does not emerge from the cover, you should be able to score the kill using the explosives. Alternatively, if you look closely, you should be able to spot a portion of enemy’s body behind the cover which you need to take advantage of.

Lastly, you need to stay behind your cover and only emerge out when you see enemy attacking you. There is always a brief window to counter-attack which you need to take advantage of.

Understanding Windflares
This is a brand new addition in Gears of War 4. You can expect to experience these windflares a few times during the course of the campaign. When these occur, they can toss heavy objects towards you, create pools of electricity in the nearby vicinity, and can alter bullets’ flight path.

Whenever you see one, try to stay behind cover most of the times, avoid the pools of electricity on the ground, and use weapons which are not greatly affected by the windflares i.e. EMBAR, Lancer, Longshot, etc.

Combat

Active Reloads
Active Reload is a concept which has been in the franchise since its inception. Once you start reloading a weapon, you get to see a bar at the top-right corner of the screen with a needle on it.

You basically need to hit the reload button once again as soon as you see the needle reach the gray area on the bar to not only get a much faster reload speed, but also get several boosts.

However, if you hit the reload button too early or too late, you not only negate the boosts, but also prolong the reload time by a large margin. Keeping this in mind, it is important that you time this perfectly or not do it at all!

To help you better understand the concept, there are basically two types of reloads – Active Reload and Perfect Active Reload. If you manage to hit the reload button anywhere while the needle is in the gray area, you get increased reload speed.

If you, however, hit the reload button as soon as the needle reaches the beginning of the gray area, you get Perfect Active Reload and boosts i.e. increased damage, better rate of fire, etc.

This is something you need to practice as it can definitely help you in the long run.

Executions
There are multiple types of executions that you can perform in Gears of War 4. Before we begin, do note that performing executions leave you vulnerable and must only be used in certain situations. In order to perform an execution, you need to damage an enemy until it is down-but-not-out and then rush in for an execution.

When it comes to different types of execution, you can either rush to an enemy and tap the Y button or hold the Y button for weapon-specific executions. Each and every weapon in the game has an execution.

Meatshields
If you do not want to go with executions, you can always rush towards a downed enemy and use it as a meatshield. This basically allows you to move around the area with cover that soaks up all the damage. However, remember that the meatshield can only absorb a limited amount of damage and becomes unusable as soon as you throw it.

This is all we have on Gears of War 4 Combat Tips and Strategies Guide. If there is anything else you would like to add, let us know in the comments section below!

Haider is a freelance contributor, who loves video games, playing guitar, and aviation. He is a competitive FPS player and also enjoys exotic RPG games like Diablo and Xenogears (his favorite game of all time) ...