10 Red Faction: Guerrilla
This third-person shooter was first released back in 2009 but was more recently remastered in 2018 and made for the Switch in 2019. Set in the future, the game takes place on Mars with players controlling Alec Mason, a mining engineer who joins a guerrilla force called the Red Fraction for the liberation of Mars from the Earth Defense Force. It’s the first game in the series where the terrain can’t be destroyed but objects in the world still can and can provide salvage that acts as the game’s currency. The game also allows players to use objects as cover, similar to the cover system in Gears 5.
9 Resident Evil 6
For some Resident Evil fans, they didn’t enjoy the shift to the more action-focused gameplay of RE6. Whatever side you’re on in that debate, if you enjoyed Gears 5 you just might get a kick out of this game. Resident Evil 6 is a third-person shooter survival horror game where players get to pick between 4 scenarios that centers around the organization Neo Umbrella that’s bent on destroying the world.
Several characters from the series return including Leon, Chris, Ada, and even an adult Sherry Birkins, along with new characters. Both games offer the player the option to either play the campaign alone or with another person and feature a cover system, though RE6’s has some notable differences and difficulties.
8 The Last Of Us
While not facing monsters like the Locust, The Last of Us is also a story about humanity’s struggle against an inhuman force. With most of the game taking place 20 years after the outbreak of a mutant strain of the Cordyceps fungus, survivors face against the infected and other hostile forces as they try to live in the post-apocalyptic world. The game focuses on two, a harden smuggler named Joel and the teenager Ellie, who just might be the key to a cure. The Last of Us is a third-person shooter in the survival horror genre but it and Gears 5 use a similar cover system game mechanic. And they star two amazing female main characters, Ellie and Kait from The Last of Us and Gears 5, respectively.
7 Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the ninth game in the series and takes place four years after Ground Zeroes. Players take on the role of Big Boss, who dubs himself “Venom Snake” as he tries to track down the people responsible for MSF’s destruction.
The Metal Gear franchise has been going on since the late 80s and was one of the first games to prioritize stealth over combat, making it a key gameplay mechanic. Gears 5 is the first game in the series to add in the element of stealth to get past enemies and take them out. There are whole areas in the game where stealth is required, just like in Phantom Pain.
6 Binary Domain
From the creators of the Yakuza game series, Binary Domain is a third-person shooter that came out in 2012. It’s set in a future where global warming has flooded the world, leaving most of humanity dead and the rest rebuilding civilization on top of the ruins of the past. Robots have also become the bulk of the labor force, and with it come a set of new international laws that forbid the creation of robots that can pass for human. The game follows the global taskforce “International Robotics Technology Association” as they look into an attack orchestrated by a human passing robot, which are known as “Hollow Children”. It and Gears 5 are pretty focused on squad gameplay and cover-based combat.
5 Uncharted Series
The Uncharted series doesn’t have the same sci-fi theme as Gears 5 or most of the other games on this list, but for anyone looking for a game with Gears 5 gameplay in a different setting, this is one of your best bets. Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the series, is a treasure hunter whose profession gets him into an insane amount of danger and adventure.
It’s a third-person action-adventure platformer that includes things like puzzle-solving and sneaking by enemies, but a lot of the combat involves shooting, taking cover, and staying on the move as enemies will flush you out easily if you stay still for too long.
4 Spec-Op: The Line
Except for the die-hard third-person shooter fan, most have probably passed on or not heard of Spec Ops: The Line. It came out in 2012 and is a reboot for the series. Fans of Gears 5 will enjoy the story as it dives pretty deep into the horrors of war, told from the perspective of Delta Force captain Martin Walker. Walker and the rest of his 3 man team take a covert mission that sends them to a Dubai ravaged by terrible sandstorms. Their goal is to figure out what happened in the city after receiving a radio message from within. It also has similar cover-based combat seen in Gears 5.
3 Mass Effect 2 & 3
Mass Effect is an amazing sci-fi series with a rich story. If you haven’t already gotten into, now is as good of a time as any. The 2nd and 3rd games are the best out of the trilogy as they continue the story of Commander Shepard who fights to save the universe from a powerful race of mechanical beings called Reapers.
Like Gears 5, Mass Effect is a third-person shooter using a similar gameplay mechanic, but has a more RPG focus as players can determine Commander Shepard’s looks, gender, history, first name and character class that has their own specialties.
2 Vanquish
Vanquish is a third-person shooter from PlatinumGames, the same company behind Bayonetta and, more recently, Astral Chain. In the game, the world’s nations fight over scarce resources with the player in control of Sam Gideon, a DARPA agent who wields a powerful almost mecha-like suit called the Augmented Reaction Suit. Vanquish brought elements new to third-person shooters like “beat’em up” elements, and fast-paced gameplay similar to Bayonetta. It and Gears 5 share a similar cover system, though the game penalizes players for spending too much time hidden behind cover. But Vanquish’s original sliding-boost mechanic gives players the ability to quickly slid in and out of cover, making it an opportunity to be defensive and offensive.
1 Gears Of War 4
It might be cheating a little to put Gears of War 4 on this list, but it wouldn’t hurt to replay it to really enjoy and get in the mindset for Gears 5. It’s the fifth main game in the franchise and the first one developed by the Coalition. It’s the start of Kait’s story that first focused on JD as they discover the existence of an evolved form the Locust, the Swarm a collective hive mind that has been abducting humans to create more Swarm creatures. Both games have very similar gameplay mechanics, using the cover system, with Gears 5 adding new ones to series.
