Should Gears of War Have Done a Sequel Instead of the E-Day Prequel?

Launching 20 years ago, Gears of War was a major franchise for the Xbox 360 that helped elevate that console at a key time in the brand’s lifespan. The story of Marcus Fenix and the rest of the COG as they fought against the Locust was a great excuse for plenty of visceral third-person shooter gameplay while also delivering some surprisingly effective emotional beats and sci-fi concepts. The later games have only grown more ambitious, employing a huge time skip and shifting focus to a new generation of characters.

However, instead of building off the sequel set-up in Gears of War 5, the franchise is looking backwards for its next installment. Gears of War: E-Day is set to be a prequel to the series, going all the way back to the events of Emergence Day that set off the human/Locust conflict in the first place. The problem is that this approach undercuts all the potential that the modern games had shown off and could potentially ruin one of the understated elements of the game’s lore.

Why Gears Of War Is Going The Prequel Route

Set for release sometime in 2026, Gears of War: E-Day serves as a prequel to the events depicted in the rest of the series. Set 14 years before the events of the first game, E-Day focuses on the titular Emergence Day when the Locust Horde first broke out from underground and attacked the world of Sera. This has some benefits for fans of the franchise, as it brings back Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago — the latter of whom has been dead since the events of Gears of War 3. The underlying concept seems to be to delve into the dynamic that developed between the two men, which was one of the central emotional storylines of the original trilogy.

The developers have argued that the storytelling potential to explore that time period was simply too good to pass up, especially with the advancements in technical potential that modern consoles have over what was available to the team when the original game came out twenty years ago. For long-time fans of the series who felt that the increasingly labyrinthine lore or the revelations about the Locus origins were too muddied by sequels, this likely straightforward story could be an ideal new entry in the series. It’s even a reunion of the original two heroes of the franchise, likely an effective nostalgia pull for fans who played the original games when they came out two decades ago. However, there are a few key drawbacks to the idea of revisiting E-Day that undercut the potential future the series has.

Why Gears Of War Should Have Another Sequel Instead Of A Prequel

One of the things that gradually became interesting about the Gears of War franchise was the way it actually developed an overarching narrative. The original trilogy came out in an era where game stories could have a conclusive ending, closing out with a series of tragic deaths and fulfilling final fights. The subsequent sequels took place decades later and centered around new characters, highlighting how the world of Sera had evolved in the years since those original games. While Marcus remained a major fixture for the series, he shifted out of the spotlight to make room for characters like his son JD and Kait Diaz. This approach opened the door for the series to take on new concepts like the possibility of a human/Locust hybrid and the descent of the COG into authoritarianism.

By going back to the earliest days of the established canon instead of building off the open-ended climax of Gears of War 5, the franchise is literally ignoring the future for another chance to glorify the past. Even just within the context of the franchise, seeing E-Day actually play out in full sounds frustrating. While games like Halo: Reach were able to add a layer of poignancy to the inevitable ending of a prequel by drawing attention to the lives lost in the fight, E-Day‘s focus on Marcus and Dom will lack a certain level of tension because players already know they go on to survive and fight in the rest of the series. Emergence Day always stood out in the canon of the games as a horrifying day that was only ever really seen in brief flashbacks and in harrowing recountings from survivors.

The event worked great as a largely unseen beat, a horrible event that reshaped the world of Sera in ways that were still being felt decades later. Actually playing through Emergence Day feels like a waste of all that unseen narrative weight, turning one of the most infamous events in the canon into just another series of missions for players to survive. A far more intriguing direction remains to push the series forward — especially because Gears of War 5 had successfully pushed Kait into the lead role, given her a genuine reason to want to hunt down the villainous forces behind the plot, and left the fate of JD up in the air. Carrying the franchise forward was the right move, as it gave Gears of War a real sense of progression and creativity. Going backwards to Emergency Day just feels like a waste of all the good momentum the franchise had been building up in the last decade and could be a backslide for a series that deserves better.