Gnasher Shotgun

The staple close-range weapon of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, refined for consistency in multiplayer combat.

The Gnasher Shotgun serves as a staple choice for close-range combat within the multiplayer ecosystem of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. Developed by The Coalition to preserve the original gameplay experience while updating visual presentation, this weapon retains its iconic status from the 2006 title. In the remaster, it functions as a primary tool for players engaging in chaotic skirmishes, though its mechanics underwent specific adjustments during the development cycle. The Coalition aimed to maintain the feel of the original codebase, ensuring that veterans would recognize the familiar spread and handling, even as the game was updated with modern rendering features like physically based shading technology.

Quick Facts

Type: Shotgun

Lore & Background

In the narrative context of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, the Gnasher remains a critical asset for Delta Squad and COG infantry facing the Locust Horde. While the campaign features visual upgrades and stylistic changes, including five additional single-player chapters depicting a mission to retrieve the Resonance Locator before the original game's events, the weapon's role in the story is consistent with the original 2006 plot. The game preserves original voice performances and Kevin Riepl's score to maintain the atmospheric tension of the tunnels where the Gnasher is most effective. During these additional chapters, which are inserted between Act 5 and the final act and occur chronologically before the original Act 5, soldiers utilize the shotgun to survive encounters, though the Brumak boss fight remains part of the original campaign, not the additional chapters.

Reader's Guide

To utilize the Gnasher Shotgun effectively in Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, players must position themselves at point-blank range, as the weapon's power is concentrated at close quarters. The development team deliberately maintained a randomized pellet spread in the original codebase, which meant damage output could vary unpredictably until the September 24, 2015 update standardized this to a specific shape for better player predictability. In multiplayer modes, which run at 60 frames per second compared to the campaign's 30 fps, the shotgun remains a vital tool for aggressive playstyles.

Players should be aware that while the weapon was designed to be devastatingly effective up close, the initial technical issues regarding damage registration were resolved through patches that addressed the spread mechanics. The Coalition emphasized that their goal was not to rebuild from scratch but to ensure the final product remained true to the original source code while fixing such inconsistencies.

Did You Know?

The Gnasher Shotgun's randomized pellet spread was altered in a September 24, 2015 update to ensure consistent damage registration at point-blank range.
In Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, the campaign runs at 30 frames per second on base Xbox One, with 60 fps on Xbox One S and Xbox One X via backward compatibility.
The Gnasher's damage issues were notably observed on local split-screen multiplayer, proving they were unrelated to latency or network problems.