Dev explains why Gears 4 shotgun misses at point-blank range, fix coming

Gears of War 4 came out back in October and as much as we enjoyed the PC version of the game, those playing may have noticed that the Gnasher, the Gears' series famous shotgun, is less accurate than in previous games. Right now in Gears 4, the shotgun's close range accuracy is very inconsistent, with point blank range shots often failing to kill a target. It turns out that there is a fairly interesting reason for this, though the developers at The Coalition will be patching it up soon.

In a March Update video for Gears 4, multiplayer director Ryan Cleven explained that due to the clipping issues that can occur in multiplayer games, the Gnasher is designed so that bullets don't fire from the muzzle but from further back instead. This means if someone walks up against a wall and attempts to clip the gun through it, the bullets won't actually make it past the wall as they are technically firing from further back than you would think.

Unfortunately, this has the side effect of really messing with point-blank range shots as bullets can spread outwards much quicker than you may expect, causing some bullets to miss when they shouldn't have from the player's point of view.

With all that said, clipping issues aren't necessarily something we see plaguing games these days, so this fix seems somewhat outdated. As a result, the multiplayer team at Gears 4 studio will be fixing the Gnasher so that bullets fire from where you would expect, which should increase the odds of getting a kill at point-blank range. This fix will be part of the March update, which also brings a ranked lobby system to the game alongside new maps.

KitGuru Says: It's always interesting to hear a bit more about how games are designed and the specific choices developers make, even down to something as simple as bullets leaving a gun. Hopefully these changes will make the Gnasher less frustrating to use in multiplayer matches going forward. 

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