'Gears of War 4' October update: Maps, Halloween event and more

It's a good week for players of "Gears of War 4" with several updates arriving in the next few days, including two new maps on Oct. 24 and a Halloween event on Oct. 27.

The two maps — Fuel Depot and Lift Apex — are the last ones to be released for the game, as announced on the official website.

Fuel Depot has already been used for "Gears of War 1 and 2" but this time it will be larger. This gives players plenty of opportunities to flank opponents in a wide open space, although it does not keep them safe from enemy snipers.

The Lift Apex, on the other hand, is a reimagined faster and more tactical version of an old map. Where before, it featured a moving lift and expanding territory, this new version is an ocean-bound elevator with timed shutters that gives players a window of protection.

According to Microsoft's Xbox Wire, Season Pass holders can access said maps with double experience (XP) and 20 percent credit bonus as early as Oct. 23. Fuel Depot and Lift Apex will be available for everyone else for free in Public Matchmaking on Oct. 30.

This will also be the last of the double XP and credit bonuses. Game developer The Coalition is introducing a new Map Owned bonus in the coming months. This will offer a permanent percentage increase in XP, as well as credit gain for any map a player owns whenever they play in Public Versus or Horde.

As for the Halloween event, Pumpkin Heads and Phantom Dodgeball are making a return along with the arrival of new characters, weapon skins and spooky events.

This week's update will also come with an Xbox One X patch, although further details have yet to be revealed.

Finally, those planning to download need not worry about storage space as some optimizations in the game will make the overall file size smaller, despite the update's big download size.

That's all for this month's update, but plenty more are expected in November as "Gears of War" celebrates 11 years.

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