Gears of War made a triumphant return this week, with the latest release, Gears of War: E-Day, ending a seven-year-long hiatus since the last release in 2019. With such a long turnaround, it’s easy to understand why fans of the nearly 20-year-old franchise would be concerned about the future, worried that the next Gears of War game might take an equal or longer time to release. These same fans can breathe a sigh of relief, though, as Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition doesn’t think future titles will take that long to produce.
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Gears of War: E-Day is not only the highest rated Gears title since Gears of War 3, but it is also the most technically advanced title to date. The title was built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5, developed by The Coalition in collaboration with People Can Fly. While the accessible engine does a lot of heavy lifting, it still goes without saying that it took the studios a significant amount of time building the assets, writing the code, and learning the lessons it needed to make the game what it is. Assets, code, and lessons that will no doubt be used to develop future titles faster.
The Coalition studio head Mike Crump seems to echo this sentiment. Speaking to the BBC, Crump said that E-Day will provide a “great foundation” for future games in the series. This seems to imply that something from the development of Gears of War: E-Day will help to make future titles easier to develop, be it the actual assets created or simply the experience the game gained from working on the title. He goes on to say that “the next game will not take nearly as long” to develop, implying both that there will be at least one more Gears game in the future and that fans will not have to wait another seven years to see it.
This is great news both for fans of the franchise and for Xbox itself, as Gears of War E-Day makes a strong case for the viability of Xbox exclusives. Although the game received a PC launch, it remains an Xbox exclusive for console players, a decision that Mike Crump says is a “natural choice.”
“Gears has been an exclusive franchise to Xbox for 20 years now. It’s sort of entwined deeply with the brand,” Crump said. “And we’re proud of that.”
This Xbox exclusivity comes at a time when the company has lost a lot of faith with the community, thanks to layoffs, studio closures, and restructuring. Naturally, Gears fans may be concerned about the future of their franchise in Xbox’s hands. This is a fear that is reportedly echoed within The Coalition itself.
Addressing concerns that the studio could face layoffs now that the game has released, Crump says, “What I say to myself, what I say to the team, is we just we need to focus on the things that we can control. For us that’s about shipping a great game that people are going to love and I feel like, as a team, we’ve done that.”
While the leadership at The Coalition seems confident that a new Gears of War game can be delivered much faster, potential layoffs could always prove to be an unexpected wrench in the “Gears”. So far, the studio has been spared from the brunt of Xbox’s layoffs, but the unpredictability of these decisions leaves the future in question.
Hopefully, the success of E-Day provides Xbox with enough reason to keep The Coalition’s team together, a team that Crump seems to believe in. “We’ve got a great team here,” Crump added. “And the leadership team in particular has worked together for upwards of 20 years. So there’s definitely a continuity of knowledge and experience.”
With this team and the foundation built by E-Day, it seems the only thing that could slow down the Gears franchise at this point is budget cuts.
