Check Out The First 20 Minutes Of Gears Of War 4

Gears of War 4 is set to launch in a little over a week, but you can go ahead and (sort of) begin your adventure nice and early. For those of you who don't mind spoilers, the first 20 minutes are now available for your viewing pleasure.

In the above video, Rod Fergusson and Matt Searcy of The Coalition introduce viewers to the Gears of War 4 prologue. In it, we see the first 20 minutes of content from the upcoming third-person shooter, including a few story beats followed by the actual gameplay. In the video's description, it's explained that players will be able to revisit "the Sera of Gears past," as well as learn more about the Sera that exists 25 years following the end of the original series' timeline.

Just a reminder that, if you choose to buy the Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition, you'll be able to start playing the game as early as next Friday, Oct. 7. For everyone else, Gears 4 will be available on the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC starting the following Tuesday, Oct. 11.

In the clip, Fergusson and Searcy explain why the new Gears game even has a prologue. In short, it allowed them to drop players right into the action, rather than start off on a quiet note. This also gave them the ability to reintroduce players to some key battles from throughout the series, serving as a history lesson of sorts leading into the new campaign.

As the clip begins, we see a bunch of folks happily celebrating the 25th anniversary of the end of the Locust War. It's a pretty neat concept, with generations of soldiers being celebrated, and then the player is literally dropped straight into a flashback of one of their defining moments.

These sections also serve as a nice tutorial, using battles from the past to acquaint newcomers to the controls rather than having you learn the ropes at the start of the new campaign.

There's a little bit of everything here, from running and gunning to chucking grenades, ducking behind cover and even mounting a turret to unleash some extra pain.

Everyone remembers the Hammer of Dawn, right? Well that makes a cameo, alongside many other memorable moments.

Again, if you're still working through the original series in preparation for Gears of War 4, you might want to skip the end of the video, where the conclusion to the epic struggle is briefly explained.

As for what follows, the duo explains that Gears 4 will be all about our new heroic trio trying to survive one night against the swarm. Based on what we've seen so far, it looks like our team is in for a long, explosive ride.