Horde Siege, the co-op mode, looks like a wave mode and pays like a raid. You spend a whole mission picking up Weapon Parts, and if it ends badly you leave with none of them. The game is not coy about it.
The rule
“Squads must successfully extract to earn Weapon Parts or they will be left behind.” And, in the shorter form the game uses elsewhere: “Weapon Parts are lost if extraction is Unsuccessful.”
Parts count when the squad gets out
Weapon Parts are the currency weapon mods are bought with, and they do not land in your account when you pick them up. Even the challenge wording splits the two verbs: “Earn and Extract Weapon Parts from missions in Horde Siege”. Earning is the first job. Extracting is the one that pays. How many Parts each objective earns is on Siege rewards.
That is the biggest structural difference from the Horde you remember. Gears 5 gave you a mode you could lose. This one gives you a mode you can lose and a pocket you can have emptied on the way out.
Everything you take home comes through the side jobs
Weapon Mods and the slots they go in are paid for “with Weapon Parts, acquired by completing Secondary Objectives and successfully completing your mission”. Armor Mods “can be found in Hardcases around the city or earned by completing Secondary Objectives”. Squad Perks come from Secondary Objectives and Invasions.
Secondary Objectives, the game’s name for the side jobs, are on every list. The main objective is on none of them.
Side jobs are marked. “Available Secondary Objectives can be found on the map,” alongside your main objective, every COG squad, the Supply Caches and ammo. Hardcases and Caches show up on Tac-Com. Nothing here is meant to be hunted blind.
The sixteen side jobs
Each one is offered to the squad by name, and any player can call for it to be started.
Trapped Family · Apartment SOS · Family Reunion · Rooftop Mayday · Lost in the Park · Lost in Translation · Weak Signal · Missing Convoy
Black Raven Down · Death from Above · Clocktower Defense · Vanguard · R.I.G. Experiment · Special Cargo · Fire in the Hole · Trapped Locust
The rewards are Weapon Parts, Armor Mods, mod slots and Squad Perks. Every side job pays the same: 100 points toward Weapon Parts, 1,000 Energy and a squad perk, as set out on Siege rewards.
Two objective types carry the rest of the mode: hunting a High Value Target and collecting COG Intel. Targets sit at named spots around Kalona: the Opera House, the Trainyard Bridge, Kalona Gate, the Car Showroom, a Downed Raven. The game announces which squad is hunting one, so the other two know roughly where you are.
Extraction is its own small mission
Get to the extraction area, clear it, defend it. A King Raven comes in, a countdown appears (“Raven leaves in:”), and it does not wait. Two things can take the exit away from you.
A boss can lock the landing zone. The pilot will not put the Raven down while something large is standing on it: “Your Raven isn’t cleared to land until you take that Brumak out!” The same line exists for a Corpser. If the last fight of your mission is a boss, that fight is the extraction.
An Invasion can switch extraction off. Extraction Disabled is a modifier, and Supply Caches can be disabled the same way. An Invasion landing late in a mission can remove the exit you were counting on.
A detail the game writes down
“If squad mates die during extraction take their COG tags with you, so you have something to remember them by.” The tags are a pickup, and the game expects you to grab them on the way to the Raven.
The scoreboard counts who left
It counts Players Extracted and Squad Members Extracted, Weapon Parts Extracted and Extractions by Difficulty, and getting everyone out has its own name, a Perfect Extraction. One challenge asks you to extract with all squad members. Another asks for three successful extractions rather than three completed missions.
How to play the last five minutes
Spend your Energy before the last push. Energy only turns into strength while the mission is still running, and the last Supply Cache is its last chance. The Squad Perk you upgrade is the version of that spend which also helps three other people.
Treat a late Secondary Objective as optional. Its reward only counts if you extract afterwards, so a side job started with the clock already running is a bet with your whole run on the table.
Revive first, loot second. The mode counts everyone getting out, and there is no reward line anywhere for a squad that died rich.