Those who have the “Veteran Gear” achievement, which Rod points out is more than just being level 100, will receive gold weapon skins on all five of Gears of War 3′s starting weapons. This is checked automatically by the game through your achievements. Meaning if you’ve had your rank reset (Or reset it yourself at some point), but have obtained the Veteran Gear achievement, you’re in the clear. Veteran Gears will also unlock a medal and title within Gears of War 3.
This has recently caused a massive uproar over at Epic’s official forums, spawning a thread over 4000 posts high in less than 24 hours. It would seem some fans are infuriated that the Veteran Gear unlocks are all but exclusive, as all of the gold weapon skins can be obtained through some means other than just having the Veteran Gear achievement. To recap lightly how you can get those weapon skins without having the Veteran Gear achievement;
Golden Gnasher – By playing on the first week of Gears of War 3′s official release, players will automatically receive this skin permanently.
Golden Sawed-Off – Players will receive this skin by having the “Commando” achievement in Gears of War 1. The game automatically checks for this, and the achievement is attained by completing the game on the Insane difficulty.
Golden Lancer – This skin is received by having the skin downloaded to your profile for Gears of War 2. In other words, if you have it in GoW2, you have it in GoW3.
Golden Hammerburst – Acquired by the same means as the Golden Lancer skin. If you have it on GoW2, you have it in GoW3.
Golden Retro Lancer – If you played the Gears of War 3 Beta, unlocked the Golden Retro Lancer in the beta (Required playing 90 total matches), and then got 100 kills with said Golden Retro lancer in the Beta, you’ll have the Golden Retro Lancer unlocked in the retail version of Gears of War 3.
