Gears 5! It’s brutal, the best slice of action on Xbox and still the main reason why you can hear me screaming VREEEEEEEEEEMMMMM at odd hours in the night. Naturally, it’s metal. And what do metal games deserve? METAL ALBUMS! That heavy metal sound that defined developer The Coalition’s latest chapter in the Gears of War saga had some of the tastiest licks around, and now it’ll be getting the vinyl treatment.

Gears 5 is a damned great game. And boy oh boy has it been a success for Microsoft. According to Microsoft’s it’s had the biggest launch for a first party game this generation.

Beyond what’s already on offer, what else can players expect from Gears 5? Seasonal activity! Similar to Destiny 2’s seasons, Gears 5 plans to support itself with post-launch bundles of activity that go by the name of Operations.

In a quick top ten, raise a glass and salute the work of audio wizards who came up with the following bits of sound so good, we can’t help but smile every time we hear them.

There are missteps, especially with the open worlds feeling lifeless, but Gears 5 is a more confident turn from a developer that no longer has to prove it’s capable of making a faithful Gears of War sequel. It’s bigger, better and more beautiful – and a bold step in the right direction for Gears. The action is superlative, the writing hits humorous and emotional notes and the number of multiplayer modes is extensive. If ever there was a reason to subscribe to Game Pass, this is it.

However you spin it, big Dave Bautista has a resume that most entertainers would kill for. The hulking bruiser made the king of kings bleed in a climatic Wrestlemania showdown, gave a young Superman a run for his money and helped save the day from galactic threats in the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Now, the man who was simply known as the animal in the WWE (or Bluetista in a return to the ring that wasn’t exactly well received) is about to face his greatest challenge yet: Multiplayer mobs.

When you play a game, you want several things: You want escapism, you want excitement and you want to have a good time. Some games do just that with tried and trusted mechanics, while others take those ideas and try to add some exotic flavour to the mix. Some fail, some succeed and some games create lasting memories that create new benchmarks in the entire industry. Here are ten such games, which are unbelievably satisfying thanks to one key gameplay factor.

Many years later, and what has changed in Gears 5and its new arcade mode multiplayer mode? Not much, but just enough.