Gears 2 to be updated this month

By Oli Welsh Published 6 January, 2009

Fixes, tweaks, achievements.

Epic boss Mark Rein has posted on the Gears of War forums detailing the next patch for Gears of War 2, which we can expect this month.

"We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January," Rein said.

Most of the update is focused on bug and exploit fixes for the online multiplayer. Invisible shields, meleeing through walls, infinite Lancer ammo and other exploits will be things of the past, and the shotgun will be more reliable in high-latency matches.

There are also going to be some tweaks to the rulset: for example, the penalties for quitting matches early will be increased and you'll have better protection from grenade and chainsaw attacks when respawning.

Some new achievements for DLC (presumable December's map pack) are being added, and there will be improvements to achievement progress notifiers.

Find more on Xbox 360's Christmas blockbuster at the Gears of War 2 gamepage.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • asphaltcowboy #1 3 years ago

    Good news! What about the slow matchmaking times?

  • muscleblade #2 3 years ago

    They delayed the map pack achievements to find out how much achievements affect DLC sales.

  • smernicki #3 3 years ago

    i finished the game and frustratingly only used 14/15 weapons. i'd love to be able to find out which one i didn't use!

  • bratmandu #4 3 years ago

    Already traded this in for banjo kazooie n&b after the initial gears of war 2 " "fix" " went up and still left me waiting for ages on a match like billy no mates. (yes that's right, i put 'fix' in double quotation marks)

    Hoarde mode was fun but the regular matchmaking was just broken. Why don't they just make the lobby/mathcmaking/party system like Halo or even COD, do no other developers realise that H3's matchmaking is pretty much spot on and should be used across the board for all games?

    Who designed Gears' UIs and why are they still in employment?

  • andywilkie35 #5 3 years ago

    smernicki - did you use the gas grenades? I didn't think they would count because I thought they were only smoke ones until I accidentally threw one at an enemy i'd shot to shit but hadn't quite killed! job done

  • Lexx87 #6 3 years ago

    muscleblade, I expect quite a lot!

  • smernicki #7 3 years ago

    andywilkie35- that's what i thought it must be, but actually trying to kill something with the gas grenade on hardcore is proving tricky, will try on a lower difficulty

  • Putty-Man #8 3 years ago

    smernicki, same here. Really enjoyed the game, my GOTY in fact, but really pissed me off not knowing which weapon I didn't use!

  • MasterNameless #9 3 years ago

    @smernicki

    If you play horde, just use the gas ones you originally spawn with as proximity mines for the area you're trying to hold. I've racked up quite a few kills with the smoke grenades that way. Granted, it usually doesn't kill them, but every now and again it gets a ticker, wretch or finishes a a heavily damaged enemy off. I thought they were just smoke grenades for a while until I actually noticed a kill with one :/

  • spidermanalf #10 3 years ago

    Has anyone else noticed Shopto selling GoW2 in the ad for 27.99 even though it says RRP 19.99!

  • Skooch #11 3 years ago

    "i finished the game and frustratingly only used 14/15 weapons. i'd love to be able to find out which one i didn't use!"

    The most commonly missed weapons are the gas grenade as mentioned but also the mulcher (heavy chain gun), hammer of dawn, boltok pistol (the big six-shooter pistol) and even the boom shot or torque bow can be easily missed.

    Best thing to do is to do have a MP match against bots and tick the weapons off from a list.

  • Skooch #12 3 years ago

    This is the full post from Mark Rein:

    Happy New Year!

    First of all I hope all of you had a safe and happy holiday season.

    As I mentioned before the break we’ve been working on a major title update for Gears of War 2. This update will address bugs and exploits as well as add some new achievements related to downloadable content. We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January. If that changes we’ll let you know.

    We’re fixing a whole bunch of online exploits. For example we’ve fixed the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through some walls, gain infinite Lancer ammo and equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously plus many more.

    We’re also making several small changes to improve the overall online gameplay experience. A few of the ones that might interest you are; increased penalties for quitting matches early, adding additional spawn protection against planted grenades and chainsaw attacks, and adding the ability to see the Submission flag carrier destination by using Tac/Com.

    We know you folks love achievements so on the achievement side we’re adding achievement progress numbers to the War Journal, increasing the frequency of in-game Achievement progression notifications and adding some new Achievements for DLC.

    This is just a very small list of some of the things that will be in the next title update but one more item which has been talked about a lot in our forums deserves a special call out...

    About that shotgun...

    We fixed the client side hit detection on the shotgun so that in a high-latency (i.e. “laggy”) match, the shotgun will be more reliable. We’ve also fixed another bug whereby shotgun and boomshot rounds could strike the ground when firing from the hip.

    So there’s a brief status report on the next title update. At some point I expect we’ll post a more detailed list but I assure you we’re working hard to get this out the door and once it’s done we’ll start working on the next update. We’ll try to do a better job keeping you informed of our progress on future updates and we’ll try to be a little more active in the forums once this update is released.

  • Apologie #13 3 years ago

    people still play gears 2??? zzzZZzzzZzzZzzz

  • Skooch #14 3 years ago

    People still dissing a great game? ZzzzzzZZZzzzzzzZZZ

  • dr_swin #15 3 years ago

    That would all be great if matchmaking would find me someone to play against.

  • Amoebalove #16 3 years ago

    people still play gears 2??? zzzZZzzzZzzZzzz
    @apologie

    The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

    Here you are, yet again, posting about a game you apparently find boring!!

  • HardCoreGamer999 #17 3 years ago

    campaign was excellent.
    MP is miserable .. It takes hours to connect and matchmaking sucks. .
    MP feels like a rushed part of the game.
    however I ll give it a try
    Epic should give maps for free and apologise ! 800credits WTF...greedy bastards.

  • MasterNameless #18 3 years ago

    @Apologie

    Ah, the most tedious of trolls rears his head again. Besides, I thought you left this site for good? Back purely to troll 360 threads, then make fake positive comments on PC games to make yourself look like less of fantard?

  • MasterNameless #19 3 years ago

    @HardCoreGamer999

    Stick to playing MP with your mates if I were you. I haven't even tried the matchmaking from the bad reports I hear about it, but 3 or more friends playing horde is great fun!

  • the_dudefather #20 3 years ago

    the matchmaking in gears 2 is laughable at times, It took so long once my controller turned off and I accidently cancelled the process when I 'woke' it up :(

  • ronuds #21 3 years ago

    I'm rather disappointed in Epic for not fixing the matchmaking issues or even addressing them for this fix. If something is broken to the point of it stopping a lot of people from using it, FIX THAT BEFORE ADDING NEW ACHIEVEMENTS!

    Gears 2 is an awesome game, but come on already...this is just crappy.

  • penhalion #22 3 years ago

    @smernicki

    If you ever manage to read this. You most likely did what I have and not killed anyone with the poison grenade.

  • bad09 #23 3 years ago

    Well it's about time, I refuse to play Gears 2 online now until they fix the bloody thing. Mind you I'm not that fussed now anyway, having finished the SP Gears 2 has gone off the boil for me and I may trade it in.

  • MAX99 #24 3 years ago

    its getting to the stage where developers are releasing buggy lazy code and relying on these updates to fix their shit...not good.

  • Progguitarist #25 3 years ago

    Too little too late. Ive given up on Gears 2. Multiplayer is a chainsaw/campfest. All they had to do was add a few bits and bobs to the first Gears, instead they dumbed it down. Biggest dissapointment of last year for me.

  • grav #26 3 years ago

    too late me thinks - i stopped playing several weeks ago due to the long matchmaking and frequent lag.

    i've lost interest now so probably won't bother.

  • Anthony_UK #27 3 years ago

    Are they simple? Sort the match making, I'm very close to trading this in becuase of the problems online. Which is a shame because the games I've had are great fun dispite my lack of skill, but I refuse to wait 10mins or more for the stupid matchmaking to do it's thing!

    I can't believe they've gone to the trouble of fixing these small issues when the online game in general is in such a state...

  • rodpad #28 3 years ago

    BRING BACK THE OLD SHOTGUN YOU CUNTS.

  • mukki #29 3 years ago

    match making takes forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrever!

    please fix that

    and being in Germany I am not even sure this update will be available here!
    couldnt even use the code for the bonus maps...

    crap i say!