Mark Rein dropped a line on the official Gears forums to let everyone know that progress is being made on the next title update for Gears of War. Oh yeah, there’s 250 more Achievement Points coming too.

From the man himself (here and here):

The next Gears of War update is coming along nicely. We don’t have a release timeframe for it yet but I just wanted to let you know we’re making significant progress. In addition to the previously mentioned plan to improve roadie run we’re also going to have new achievements relating to Annex and the Hidden Fronts DLC. Of course no title update would be complete without more exploit squashing and the ever-popular “general housekeeping”.

The title update is free and that’s what contains the achievements. However some of the achievements are tied to things relating to playing the maps in the Hidden Fronts map pack which currently costs money but will be made free in a few months.

This might be a little known tidbit in the annals of the Xbox360’s creation process, but Epic claims that they convinced Microsoft to add 512MB of RAM to the motherboard of the next gen system to handle what Gears of War was promised to be bringing graphics wise reports Major Nelson. This addon brought a hefty price tag of a cool Billion. Microsoft obliged because, well, we all know what GoW brought as a Killer App. Now, Epic has brought a massive uproar about Microsoft charging 800 microsoft points for the new map pack. Epic claims that the map pack should be free, even though they laughed when they claimed they “spent” a lot of Bill Gates’ dough. They are essentially telling Microsoft that they can’t make that billion back. Who are the real losers here? Us. The consumer. We are the ones who have to shell out 10 bucks for new maps. Seems like the collateral damage always affects the little guy.

Now Major Nelson, who has been the so-called voice of the next gen gamer has created quite a stir with some of his comments on what is going on between Microsoft and Epic. Here is his podcast on this topic. Fast forward to about 7 minutes; thats when it gets juicy.

Yesterday we brought you videos of 3 of the 4 new maps for Gears of War. Today, we’ve got a trailer of the new map Marsh for you.

Ch-check it out.

Here’s your HD goodness.

Epic today released the new Gears of War map pack. Today we bring you some videos of the new maps. We’ve got videos of Garden, Process, and Subway.

The new maps looks really cool. I’m just now sure I want to pay $10 now for them. I think it’s going to be a waiting game for me until September.

Here’s your HD goodness.

Hit the jump for more…

Our good friend Majornelson reports that there will be 4, count it, 4 new maps available for download this Thursday. They will cost 800 microsoft points. They will be free in September, though who really wants to wait that long anyway. Here are the 4 maps and a short description of each, again all courtesy of MajorNelson.
 

Bullet Marsh: In this Kryll-infested swamp, an old generator still powers the area lights. A few stray bullets could easily knock out the generator, leaving combatants to fend for themselves against the Kryll.

Garden: This overgrown and crumbling conservatory still has a working fertilization and pesticide system. This system can pose a serious hazard to anyone who ventures into the greenhouse without first venting the air.

Process: Teams must fight for control of this subterranean Imulsion processing plant, still active despite the cessation of the Pendulum wars.

Subway: Timgad’s Central Subway station used to serve as a central hub for commuters. Now the tunnels are crawling with Locust.

We have all played through Gears of War single player and least twice, I mean the first time took like 5 hours. And we probably stumbled upon some cogs that serve absolutely no purpose to the games outcome. Besides an achievement and some self satisfaction, thats about it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to find out that whenever you see a red GoW skull, a cog is probably near by. Sometimes, they are hidden like in a couch or something you need to chainsaw. So just in case you want all 30 cogs, and have money you want to set on fire, you can BUY all 5 acts for 1.50 a piece reports our good friends at joystiq. What the f&%k? Is Cliffy B. serious? This guy can probably buy and sell professional athletes and he is going to charge for some meaningless easter egg BS? Just in case you are wondering, MajorNelson has the entire breakdown of the pricing and so forth. If you are really desperate, a google search or Youtube is entirely free.

The Gears of War auto-update is coming today! Get ready for some great Annex action! Fire up your 360’s this afternoon/evening to get the update.

Along with the Annex game type, there’s a ton of bug fixes, including VGA support for new resolutions. That should make some of you PC monitor users happy

With the Gears of War update coming soon, we’ll be getting a new gametype, Annex. Here’s a cool video showing some gameplay from Annex, which is a capture and hold type of game. This is always more fun than standard deathmatch for me.

Just like your old, ugly high school girlfriend, Epic has un-dated the Gears of War Update.

We reported on it earlier, but now the page has mysteriously disappeared from the official website. I would venture to say that some eager web developer at Epic jumped the gun. The update probably is still going through Microsoft’s extremely long certification process. I would expect it later next week or early the following week.

We’ll keep you updated as more details come out. I’m sure Mark Rein will post on the official Epic forums about it. He’s usually very good with talking to the community.

So Gears of War is getting an update, that much we knew. Today, Epic updated the Gears website and dated the update: April 9. So get ready to fire up your 360’s on Monday.

Along with some bug fixes, we’re also getting a new multiplayer game type: Annex. The gist of the game is to capture and hold territory. Sounds cool enough. The best part: there’s respawns in Annex. So now, when you get curb stomped (because we all know you will), you won’t have to sit out and wait for everyone else to bleed out.

Hit the jump for more…