TL:DR: Gear Packs are gone. So is Season Pass. You can earn exclusive customization.

Earning content in Gears is something we know many of you care deeply about. You’ve asked and we’ve listened.

In Gears 5, our goal is to create a player-first experience when it comes to in-game content, and it starts with this:

• No Season Pass
• No Gear Packs
• DLC Maps are free for matchmaking and Private Play
• Exclusive earnable content in the all-new Tour of Duty system
• All store purchases are direct, no RNG so you always know what you will get

We have many exciting new features for Gears 5 coming up that we’ll talk about in detail soon.

However, we felt it was important to let you know how we’re handling in-game content now rather than waiting until we talk about those features.

Read on for a breakdown of how you’ll collect content in Gears 5.

We’ve committed to delivering more earnable content than ever before through an extensive new system called Tour of Duty. You take on Daily Challenges and seasonal Medals to rank up and earn customization content (including character skins).

The path to each piece of content earnable is clear – you will know what you need to do to earn each specific customization item. In addition, there is no ‘Premium’ pay-only content for Tour Of Duty.

Tour of Duty will also run in a seasonal format, delivering brand new content and challenges to chase every season.

In addition to Tour of Duty, you’ll also directly earn rewards in other ways, such as leaderboard placements in Escape or Versus.

With Supply Drops, every minute you play (across every multiplayer mode) contributes towards a random item drop from a unique pool of content we call Supply.

If you draw a duplicate card, we’ll automatically turn it into Scrap. Scrap can be spent on crafting Supply items you don’t have or character skills you want to upgrade.

Supply Drops and Supply Drop Content cannot be purchased with real-world money.

Exclusive customization content can be bought with a premium in-game currency called Iron. Iron is purchased with real world currency.

You will also be able to earn a limited amount of Iron through each Tour of Duty to spend in content in the Store.

Content found in the store is direct purchase, meaning what you see is what you get. No Gear Packs, no randomness.

We are committed to ensuring we preserve a fair competitive environment across our modes, so there will be no items in the store that provide a competitive advantage for real-money purchasers, i.e. no pay to win.

Boost is a new optional purchasable in Gears 5 that provides accelerated progression for a period of real-world time (e.g. 1 Day, 7 Days, etc.).

Boost offers the following benefits:

• Double Multiplayer XP
• Double Character XP for Escape & Horde
• Double speed Supply Drop Progression

Boost is not required to earn or unlock any content.

We know you probably have lots more questions but don’t worry we have much more information to share in the future before Gears 5 comes out. Stay tuned!