Gears Tactics Character Creation
Gears Tactics lets you recruit generic soldiers of all classes alongside the more prominent hero units like Gabe and Sid, and you can customize these characters any way you see fit to create your own personal squad. Like XCOM, customizing your characters is a large part of the game, and thankfully, Gears Tactics provides a wealth of cosmetic items to allow you to modify every aspect of someone’s appearance. Weapons, armor, clothing, and accessories can all be tweaked, even on the named hero units.
Gears Tactics How to Customize Characters
All characters in Gears Tactics can be customized, but the hero units cannot have certain aspects of their appearance changed. Hero units like Gabe and Sid can only have their weapons and armor modified, so you can’t customize the finer details of the main characters. Standard troops are fair game when it comes to customization, and you can alter whatever you’d like with these soldiers. Unfortunately, Gears Tactics does not provide any way to change units’ faces, but you can change just about everything else.
To customize characters in Gears Tactics, proceed to the Barracks and select the character you’d like to customize. From there, you can select their main weapon under Loadout and fit it with a variety of attachments and paint jobs. Under Armor, you can change the character’s helmet, upper armor, and lower armor, choosing between the various pieces you’ve found out in the field. These are the only customization options available to hero units.
To customize a troop’s appearance in Gears Tactics, select the character you’d like to customize and scroll below Loadout and Armor to the Appearance section. There, you can change that troop’s hairstyle, clothing, and headgear as well as make minor modifications to things like tattoos and scars. At the bottom of the menu, characters can also be renamed, allowing you to enter a custom first and last name and choose from a long list of preset callsigns.
Gears Tactics Soldier Classes
Like any tactics game, the aim of the game is to position your squad and take advantage of their specific skillsets to meet any given situation. Each character gets access to a primary weapon, a secondary, and a grenade slot, alongside many active and passive skills. Gears Tactics has a bunch of base classes, each with additional specializations that can be pursued through the game’s skill trees. You don’t have to pursue a single tree either, with the ability to mix and match skills from multiple lines if you have the points available to do so.
It also seems there are a few hero-specific classes and abilities that regular troops may not get access to. The pre-order / Xbox Game Pass PC bonus for Augustus Cole, for example, is a unique class all of his own.
Here’s what we know so far about each class, with more info coming as and when we get it.
Support
Support soldiers are the glue that keeps a team together, whether it’s via medical support or leadership. The Support skill tree features a Surgeon quarter, which no doubt boosts stim healing abilities, and a Combat Medic quarter, which probably combines a mixture of attacking and healing. There are also Strategist and Paragon quarters in the skill tree, granting passive and active buffs to your squad. One ability we saw was a stim grenade, which boosts the combat abilities of your squad in an area of effect.
Heavy
Heavies are, as you might expect, Heavy, and are complete with weaponry to match. Wielding weapons like the Vulcun Gattling Gun, Heavy troops get a special stacking bonus called “Anchoring” when they take multiple shots from the same position. The idea for a Heavy is to bunker down in cover and rain death on the enemy, remaining stationary to gain that Anchoring accuracy bonus.
Sniper
Snipers, of course, are all about long-range attacks with a big ol’ rifle. The skill trees are dubbed Marksmanship, Hunter, Assassin, and Stalker, which let you further customize how they’ll handle. Some of the abilities we saw pertain to reducing accuracy penalties for ranged attacks, and concussive attacks which stun enemies.
Scout
The Scout is an up-close-and-personal fighter wielding a shotgun, typically. We didn’t get a huge look into this class yet, but they’re designed around putting pressure on the enemy and flanking, complete with light stealth capabilities like Jack the robot.
Vanguard
Vanguard may only be available to Sid Redburn, who is a grizzly vet in your main squad. This seems oriented on self-sufficiency and tanking, with the ability to distract enemies and disrupt enemies and survive blows that would kill other classes. The Vanguard tree features Shock Trooper, Assault, Paladin, and Warden quarters, allowing you to customize the Vanguard’s playstyle further.
