The Discovery Channel is sponsoring two upcoming Gears of War map packs, to be available for free from the Xbox Live Marketplace this Wednesday on January 10th.
Details on the maps from Gearheads of War:
“Raven Down” Map:
Description: A Raven Helicopter has gone down in the middle of a large scale battle with the omnipresent Locust Horde. Gears have taken out the Seeder and gamers join Delta Forces moving into the crash site from all angles to search for survivors.
“Old Bones” Map:
Description: In an attempt to eradicate any traces of human history and culture, the Locust Horde has emerged under Sera’s Capitaline Museums and has begun to destroy them brick by brick. Each gamer’s mission is to help the Delta Force recapture the museums before all remnants of humankind’s existence are obliterated.
Epic Games’ Mark Rein confirmed the upcoming release: “This is legit. The Gears update will go out over Xbox Live before the downloadable content is available. We’ll post some more information about this in the morning.”
From Xbox 360 Fanboy and Gearheads of War.
UPDATE: Read the official news from Xbox.com.
UPDATE: Mark Rein released the following information:
“A Gears of War update should start pushing through the system at some point tomorrow, Tuesday January 9, 2007 prior to the two new multiplayer maps being available on Xbox Live Marketplace on Wednesday January 10, 2007. The maps, plus an introductory video featuring Gears designer Cliff Bleszinski, are free thanks to the kind sponsorship by the Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons series which launches next Monday January 15th, 2007. Be sure to check out the show to see some really cool firepower. I expect game designers all across the country will be watching that series very carefully looking for ideas for their future games.
Here is a list of what was addressed in this update:
- Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640×480
- Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
- Players can now get the Achievement for “Dish Best Served Cold” when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
- Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
- Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
- Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
- Enabled “Strict” NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
- Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
- Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
- Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
- Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
- Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
- Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
- Added additional cheat detection code
- Additional housekeeping updates”
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