Praise was directed towards the improved graphics, sound, and the minimal deviations from the original gameplay experience, while criticism focused on AI issues and the dated design of campaign levels.

[2] Following the acquisition of the Gears of War intellectual property by Microsoft from Epic Games in early 2014, The Coalition was formed and charged with the continuation and development of the franchise.

It was determined that the team ought to maintain a playable build of the game throughout development, and so the best starting point was with the original codebase; from a content perspective, this meant things would already be working on the first day of developmental cycle.

[4] As they had limited exposure to the gameplay code, the team worked closely with Epic Games, the original developers, which included making site visits to their office for discussions and meetings.

[4] As part of their "always playable" design philosophy, the team's budget for the project were set and maintained by monitoring real world performance in the game.

[4] During an in-depth interview with Eurogamer, Huculak noted that all changes and enhancements to the original source code were implemented based on recommendations from their rendering team.

[4] A promotional trailer released for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition paid homage to the original 2006 television advertisement, using the same cover by Gary Jules of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World".

[13] The initial PC release of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which was exclusively developed for Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP), suffered from significant display problems and stuttering on contemporary top-end hardware, especially with AMD Radeon graphic cards.

[16] The specific technical issues observed in Ultimate Edition were linked to the developer's transition of the game to DirectX 12 and the implementation of ambient occlusion.

[22] Matt Miller gave a favorable review of Ultimate Edition and praised the final product of The Coalition's visual and audio overhauls as "restored beauty".

Nevertheless, Miller described his experience with Ultimate Edition as a "fun and visually impressive trip down memory lane", and said that "new and old players alike should feel no hesitation about seeing this as the definitive way to play the opening story of the Gears epic".

While less enthused about the campaign's late-game chapters and "frustrating AI", Mahardy summarized that the return trip "might have revealed a few more cracks than we remembered, but it also serves as a shield for our nostalgia".

[25][34] Although certain publications such as GameStar have favorably reviewed the PC version, its technical issues attracted widespread criticism of the developer and Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform.