Gears of War: Ultimate Edition really becomes ultimate with four free games

If you browse for video games for either of the major current-gen consoles, your fingers won't get very far before they bump into a "remaster" of a game from the past decade. That specific field has become so crowded, in fact, that remaster games have now had to one-up each other just to stand out.

One way to do so is to slap a ton of additional content onto the disc, which Microsoft tried last year with the fumbled launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Well, the company is trying again—this time with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. The new Xbox One game, set to hit stores on August 25, was originally going to launch as a top-to-bottom remaster of the 2006 Xbox 360 hit, complete with newer games' maneuvers and weapons slapped into both single and multiplayer modes.

Those upgrades will all still be there, but now Ultimate Edition buyers will get the added bonus of free access to all four original Xbox 360 Gears games, including the very one being remastered, Gears 2, Gears 3, and the Gears of War: Judgment spinoff. There are two catches worth noting: One, these are untouched 360 versions, meaning gamers will have to wait for the Xbox One's 360 backward compatibility to be launched "this fall" before those versions go live. And two, shoppers will need to buy and play the Ultimate Edition online by December 31, 2015 to gain digital access to the older games.

The announcement also means that fans will soon be able to slap original Gears discs and downloads into Xbox One consoles and enjoy backward compatibility that way, whether or not they take the Ultimate plunge. In fact, Xbox One preview program members can hop right into the first Gears' 360 version today. However, the Ultimate version won't grant free access to any 360 games' map packs or other DLC that hasn't already been made free; those purchases will carry over for prior players, at least.

We played a few deathmatch battles in Gears Ultimate during this year's E3, and we didn't have much to report about that experience. We'll soon dive into the full remaster—the first release from new Gears studio The Coalition—for the sake of a review later this month.