An Official PS3 Port of Gears of War 3 Exists, But You’re Never Going to Play It

By Joseph Stanichar  |  May 20, 2020 | 5:30pm
Images via Microsoft
Video Games News Gears of War
An Official PS3 Port of Gears of War 3 Exists, But You’re Never Going to Play It

An eight-hour YouTube video containing official footage of the Xbox-exclusive Gears of War 3 running on a PlayStation 3 was uploaded Tuesday, which the game’s developers claim was for testing purposes and never intended for release.

The video was uploaded by a self-described former hacker who goes by the username PixelButts on Twitter (yes, PixelButts), and has uploaded footage of different demos, builds and prototypes from various games since 2016, including an unofficial January 2011 build of Gears of War 3 running on a PS3. Whereas that footage was allegedly the work of hackers, however, this build has been confirmed to be by the Epic Games, the game’s developer.

As far as quality goes, it’s far from being ready to ship. Some segments run just fine, with no visual hiccups and a near-stable frame rate at 30 frames per second. Other segments are buggy messes, especially in scenes with the character Anya, whose hair seems to cause the game to lag down to below three frames per second and fill the screen with unrecognizable shapes. There are also two parts where the player is unable to progress due to technical glitches, including the game’s final boss.

The build also uses the usual Xbox 360 button prompts onscreen, leading PixelButts to upload a 30-second video showing it boot up from the PS3 menu to verify that yes, this is actually running on a PS3.

If you’re hoping to infiltrate PixelButts’ home to nab this version for your PS3, (1) don’t do that, that’s theft, and (2) it won’t work on your run-of-the-mill PS3. According to the video’s description, the build is only playable on special kits developers have access to when making games for consoles, due to the extra RAM included in the kits. And even if you managed to grab a PS3 developer kit, PixelButts claims the game also needs data fixes he’s not sharing publicly.

In an update to the original post by Kotaku, Epic Games responded by confirming that they made the build for PS3, but that it was intended only for testing purposes and not ever meant for retail release.

In short: a somewhat buggy version of Gears of War 3 for PlayStation 3 exists, but you’re probably never going to play it.

For more on Gears of War, check out our ranking of the entire series, our review of Gears of War 3 and of its most recent main installment, Gears 5.

 
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