Gears of War 4 competitive cross-play being tested this weekend between PC, Xbox One owners

If you’re still playing Gears of War 4’s multiplayer, this weekend has something special on offer. The Coalition team has decided to enable competitive cross-play for this weekend in hopes of gathering data on what it’s like for Xbox One and PC gamers to go head-to-head. Unifying the PC and Xbox audience has recently been a priority at Microsoft, and 2016 has seen some massive steps forward. The Play Anywhere initiative allows gamers to buy a single copy of a game, and play it on both console and PC. Similarly, Redmond has made major strides in the cross-play department as well.

Gears of War 4 launched with cooperative cross-play support, so PC players and Xbox One players have been teaming up for the last two months. The only major limitation was the lack of public match-making for competitive multiplayer. If everyone’s on the same team, no big deal. But the second you have KBAM and controller players going up against each other, then it becomes a problem. To solve the balance issue, The Coalition first needs to get a clear picture of how the two platforms stack up.

Over in the official Gears of War forums, a community manager posted the details for this weekend-long test. From December 2nd to December 5th, both platforms will be able to face-off in a versus playlist that includes team deathmatch, dodgeball, and king of the hill modes. All maps are playable, up to five people can join each squad, and all players will receive bonus XP.  Of course, this test doesn’t guarantee that competitive multiplayer will become a staple of Gears 4 or any other first-party Microsoft game. It’s possible that the PC’s precision advantage is too daunting to overcome, and they’ll abandon any hopes of merging the platforms. Maybe they’ll only allow PC gamers to compete using controllers — it’s completely up in the air.

Still, there’s a massive benefit to unification. Keeping the player pool filled for everyone means that the game will enjoy a longer life. And the more people stick around, the more money Microsoft can make off of cosmetics. The thirst for weapon skins is real, y’all. Player count on the PC has reportedly been a problem for some recent titles, so it makes complete sense to break down the barriers. Besides, it’s no fun sitting around match-making for a half-hour regardless of your preferred platform.

So, what do you think the test will prove? Can the diehard Gears fans on the Xbox One hold their own, or will high-end gaming mice put the controllers to shame? Make your predictions known in the comment section below, and we’ll check back in if Microsoft sees fit to release the final stats. As for us, we’re wagering that the performance difference won’t be insurmountable. There’s no doubt that mouse aiming is better, but people have been playing Gears of War on controllers for about a decade now. All of that experience will help compensate for the inferior aiming.