Job Listings Suggest That Microsoft Is Already Ramping Up For Gears of War 5

Gears of War 4 just came out in late 2016, bringing back a series in proper form for fans to enjoy, with both single and multiplayer. But even with it still being somewhat fresh, it appears that one of the developers behind the game is already preparing for the road ahead.

Some job listings have appeared over at Splash Damage, the developer that worked on the multiplayer side of Gears 4, which suggest that Microsoft is already pushing forward for the next chapter in the series.

There are several positions open over on the Splash Damage page, including associate art director, cinematic artist, cinematic environment artist, cinematic lead and a number of others – and they all clearly relate to the Gears of War franchise.

But one interesting job lead that stands out is for Storyboard Artist, suggesting that Splash Damage may be more involved with the game's campaign this time around.

"Splash Damage is looking for a talented Artist to create cinematic storyboards and concepts to help us build stunning and inspiring art for an upcoming title. You'll be inspiring the team and helping visualize the narrative while collaborating with the Cinematic Lead to ensure that the visual style and pacing is maintained. You will help to establish the artistic vision for Cinematics and be highly film literate, with a good understanding of layout, composition, sequential drawing and editing.

As a Storyboard artist, you will:

• Help establish and drive the visual narrative in collaboration with Leads.
• Iterate and explore ideas based around the game and narrative design."

The Coalition took care of a majority of the development behind Gears 4, though Splash Damage helped out quite a bit. It appears, though, that Splash may be taking over some of the development on the series. It's unknown if The Coalition is still involved, but there have been some rumors that the development team may be working on a new Perfect Dark instead, with Microsoft hoping that franchise will catch fire again.

We won't really know anything about either Gears 5 or Perfect Dark until E3 rolls around in a few months, when Microsoft will no doubt show its hand for what's coming to the Xbox One and Xbox One X. But if both games are announced, it'll certainly help strengthen the company's first-party line-up, something it's been needing since the drought it suffered last year, with the cancellation of Scalebound and the delay of Crackdown 3.

We'll see what comes down the line. But in the meantime, be sure to check out Gears of War 4 now for Xbox One and Windows PC.