Gears 2 patch adds Social Matches

By Robert Purchese Published 19 May, 2010

Can be joined mid-game.

Epic Games has rolled out Title Update 6 for Gears of War 2.

Social Xbox Live Matches are the big new addition. These are available to those of you who downloaded all Gears of War 2 DLC maps. Epic promises to "dramatically reduce" the price of the All Fronts Collection to assist with this.

Social Matches can be joined mid-game and quit without penalty (although extra XP will not be earned). If there are no games available your party will start a new map and fill unused player slots with bots.

Social leaderboards will be part of the War Journal.

An an effort to aid differentiation, Public Matches are being renamed Ranked Xbox Live Matches, and Private Matches will become Custom Xbox Live Matches.

There are numerous tweaks to the online multiplayer and exploit fixes besides.

The full Title Update 6 notes can be found on the Epic Games forum.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • davisorle #1 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 13:33:55 08-05-2012

  • JahB #2 2 years ago

    wow, we could have needed that patch 2 years ago

  • SilverNeon #3 2 years ago

    Apparently they fixed the host selection, team balance and hit detection aswell finally! Only thing is I don't play or own this anymore cos it took them long enough.
    Edited by SilverNeon at 19/05/10 @ 09:39

  • metalangel #4 2 years ago

    I wish I could put this in fifty foot high letters:

    Adds the ability to join Horde sessions that are in progress.

    A simple but EXCELLENT change. The number of Horde games we've ended prematurely to go back and get someone who's just come online...

  • fiery_jackass #5 2 years ago

    I doubt "host selection" will be "fixed", given the balls-ups associated with previous TUs but at least it might be a step in the right direction. I love love Gears' multiplayer when its working well for everyone, but quit out of 4 matches last night due to unplayable lag... 15 seconds of bullet lag in one instance.

    If social, host selection and ballistic fixes makes it a more rounded experience I'll happily string along until GOW3.

  • the_dudefather #6 2 years ago

    'Social Xbox Live Matches are the big new addition. These are available to those of you who downloaded all Gears of War 2 DLC maps'

    payingforpatcheslol

  • Anthony_UK #7 2 years ago

    Sorry to say after waiting 20mins in matchmaking for at least the first few weeks on release untill I grew tired, Ive never had any incentive to go back to Gears 2

  • TeaFiend #8 2 years ago

    About time they added the ability to join in progress for Horde.

  • MiniAmin #9 2 years ago

    I was gonna say a witty critical comment but instead i'll say this:

    thank you Epic, better late than never.

  • TruWari3r #10 2 years ago

    wait, this is an announcement for an update or is it up right now?

  • fiery_jackass #11 2 years ago

    end of the week, apparently

  • LiveForever #12 2 years ago

    Haha for anyone who paid full rip off price for the DLC idiots.

  • doragor #13 2 years ago

    sweet. long overdue. bots replacing quitters in Horde then? yes please.

    Edit: didn't read this properly. can't say I approve of the fact that you need all downloadable maps. that's not good.

    Not sure why I got downvoted, maybe with my ignore list around 60+ for this site, I shouldn't be surprised
    Edited by doragor at 20/05/10 @ 09:09

  • sfp_noodle #14 2 years ago

    Whilst this is all dandy and all, why the hell do we have to have a map pack to access it? I have all All Fronts pack but for those who didn't invest this is a bit of a kick in the teeth. It's just a new playlist and should not be limited just to those who pay.

  • JonFE #15 2 years ago

    I've been waiting for Epic to "dramatically reduce" the price of All Fronts collection (or Dark Corners for that matter) since I'm only interested in the deleted single player level and not the multi player ones. Hopefully their promise holds water :)

    EDIT: Thanks RedSparrows! I will keep it in mind before making any purchases.
    Edited by JonFE at 19/05/10 @ 15:12

  • RedSparrows #16 2 years ago

    The SP level is poor. The MP maps are the real value, if you like MP. I like the SP but wasn't that impressed.

  • CaptainQuint #17 2 years ago

    Two years two late.

  • mr_shoe_uk #18 2 years ago

    Why not just have the 'player matches' or whatever they're called like this from the start?

  • metalangel #19 2 years ago

    @JonFE: Just to further echo that the deleted single player mission is not worth the price of admission on its own. Its removal does make sense, as it doesn't really add much. You'd probably get better value for money buying the two novels and reading those...

  • darkphoenix #20 2 years ago

    The lack of social matches was the reason I left Gears 2 multiplayer, after realizing how frustrating it was to find a party and a game, how long it took to choose this, vote for that, endless countdowns....
    This patch comes way too late, Epic.


    You had a great "casual/drop in FAST for a few laughs" multiplayer in the first Gears, it kept me hooked for months.
    Then, you just... died.

    SHAME ON YOU!