Gears 3 maps galore

Epic Games and Microsoft have celebrated the release of the Horde Command addon pack for Gears of War 3 by offering more details about upcoming DLC for the multiplayer game, both free and paid.

The Horde pack will add several minor boosts to the game, including new character models, weapon skins and achievements. More importantly, it also offers three new multiplayer maps — Blood Drive, Rustlung and Azura — in addition to new buildable fortifications for use in the game’s Horde mode. To stem the endless tide of Locust, players will be able to throw up a Command Center to call in fire support, construct two new types of sentry bot and upgrade the Silverback mobile armour with rocket launchers.

The Horde Command pack costs 800 magic pixie points, or the price of many full XBLA games.

Thankfully, the first new piece of DLC to follow the announcement, the Versus Booster Map Pack, will be free to all players when it launches on November 24th. The five ‘new’ arenas in the addon will be the three maps sold as part of the Horde Command pack, plus new editions of the Swamp and Clocktower levels from the original Gears of War.

This should please fans who are unwilling to shell out to continue playing alongside their friends on public maps, but it does call the value of the Horde Command DLC into question. Is it really worth 800 MSP for some Horde updates and skins?

The third piece of content, slated for a December release, is RAAM’s Shadow, an update promising three new hours of narrative gameplay as well as the customary multiplayer characters and skins. The addon will cost 1200 MSP on release.