Epic will be offering two new free multiplayer maps along with a software patch for Gears of War in the upcoming days. First, on January 9, a software update for the game will be made available. According to a posting from Mark Rein on the Gears forums, the following changes will be made:

• Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480
• Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
• Players can now get the Achievement for “Dish Best Served Cold” when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
• Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
• Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
• Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
• Enabled “Strict” NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
• Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
• Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
• Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
• Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
• Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
• Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
• Added additional cheat detection code
• Additional housekeeping updates

In addition, January 10th will bring two new multiplayer maps, Raven Down and Old Bones. According to John Porcaro at Microsoft’s Gamerscoreblog, the map downloads will be free, thanks to a sponsorship from the Discovery Channel. Gamerscoreblog has descriptions of the maps as well as four screenshots of the new content.