Retro Lancer
Easily my personal favourite so far, this is an absolute beast of a weapon in close quarters, you can easily go toe to toe with someone wielding a gnasher and come out on top. Holding down the melee button will initiate the charge move; if your target is damaged enough, or you hit them in the back be ready to roar in satisfaction as you impale them on the massive dagger attached to it. The big disadvantage with this gun is that it has massive recoil when you fire anymore than a couple of shots. Pace your shots and you can easily down someone in no more than 6, this weapon is tricky to get the hang of, but you’ll be racking up kills left and right once you get the timing down. The reload time is also very long, timing the perfect active isn’t really worth the trade off though, it’s much better to play it safe and reduce the risk of jamming.
Sawed Off Shotty
This gun is all kinds of awesome, but its uses are very limited. Do not try and use this as if was a more powerful shotgun, its best used as a surprise weapon, at anything less than two feet this will instantly kill anyone in the firing line. Much like the Retro Lancer, this gun has an extremely long reload time and timing the active is very risky. Due to how this gun is going to be used, if you mess up your active in a bad situation; you’re most likely going to be dead. It’s generally better to switch weapons if your target doesn’t die, you only get one shot at well... one shotting your target.
Digger Launcher
This is easily the most unique weapon to appear so far, this fires a grenade underground that will travel a certain distance then fire up and explode. It has a very good amount of range depending on how you well you are using at, you can take out guys five feet away just as well as guys that are thirty feet away. It has very limited ammo though and the trail it leaves in the ground is anything but subtle, so be sneaky with this weapon.
Incendiary Grenades
These function is the same way as other grenades in the Gears universe, they can tagged to walls and thrown normally. What makes these great is that they will explode on impact with a player, which will instantly kill them in a blaze of fire. They have a rather small area of effect, which makes them great for players who like to hold up in a small area, they’re also great for getting people out of cover.
So that covers the new weapons as of today, as the beta goes on, more maps and weapons will no doubt be added. Be sure to tear up the comments with your experiences so far in the beta and stay tuned for volume 2 later in the week where I’ll go over the biggest changes from the previous game.