You just knew they would do it but you just didn't know when. Now we know that developer Epic Games and publisher Micorosoft will release a port of their multi-million selling Xbox 360 third person shooter Gears of War for the PC platform (or the Games For Windows platform as Microsoft now labels it).

During a Microsoft E3 press event last night we got to play some multiplayer matches in one of the new exclusive PC levels that will be included with the new version of Gears of War. The industrial looking level (lots of rusty looking pipes and such) was perfectly made for this game with lots of cover points that exploit Gears of War cover fire mentality when it comes to multiplayer shooters. There will be about four or five new multiplayer levels in the game along with a new single player/co-op mini-campaign. As you might have read last night one mission will have you facing the huge monster brute that was featured in lots of the pre-release trailers for the game but was never actually fought by the player itself in the Xbox 360 version.

The game looked pretty fantastic in the high-res glory of 1900x1200 screen size for the PC demo. The game's art and textures will be tweaked to make the PC port truly take advantage of a high end PC set-up. While the version we got to play was based on DirectX9 you can also expect a Vista/DirectX10 version as well. While PC players will not be able to play against their Xbox 360 counter-parts, the PC version of Gears of War will have some new achievements to unlock. Finally the full Unreal Engine 3 mod tools will be provided for folks itching to make new Gears of War mods.

Based on what we saw last night, the PC version of Gears of War will not be the disaster that the PC version of Halo 2 turned out to be. In other words, expect a great looking (if bloody) shooter experience with some new stuff to keep you occupied. Look for more info on Gears of War PC in the coming months before its release late in 2007.

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