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It's funny how life works out sometimes. I'm sitting across from Rod Fergusson following the Xbox Games Showcase, and the general manager of the Diablo franchise is complaining that the sound from an adjacent room is deafening. We met in 2019, back when Fergusson was charged with leading production of Gears 5 – the creative director demanding that a new gameplay trailer have its audio amped up so that I'd feel the action in my bones. We're speaking now so that, ostensibly, he can tease out details of Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, but it didn't take much to get him reflecting on the importance of Gears of War: E-Day – to Gears, to The Coalition, and to the players feverishly rewatching the reveal trailer.
"I was thinking about all of that as I was getting ready to watch the Xbox Games Showcase," he tells me, flashing the Crimson Omen tattoo immortalized across his bicep. "E-Day is the tenth Gears of War game. I've had creative involvement in all of the previous nine, so this is the first I haven't had anything to do with. I didn't even know it was going to be E-Day. You know, I thought I had great ideas for what Gears 6 was going to be, and how to finish that trilogy, so I was kind of wanting to see how they were going to do it… but I love what they are doing."
"E-Day was one of those things we used to talk about when we were doing Gears one through five; players were always asking, 'How come you haven't done E-Day?' A part of it was that we didn't feel like the technology could render it right. It's this massive invasion, where tens of millions of people get killed; we just didn't think we could do it justice on Xbox 360. But now, looking at what The Coalition is doing with Unreal Engine 5, and what they're able to achieve with the Series X, this is the perfect time to have an E-Day story. I'm so excited to see what they do, and I'm proud of them."
Perhaps it's fate that led Fergusson back into the arms of Xbox, a strange occurrence after the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. And fate that led Fergusson to be an emphatic advocate of both Gears of War and his former team at The Coalition once again, even if he is now separated by a franchise and a thin plywood wall. But what is it about Gears of War: E-Day that has him so excited? To understand that, we need to switch gears over to the creatives at The Coalition.
Origin story
Gears of War: E-Day depicts a defining moment in the history of humanity. It's an origin story set 14 years before the events of the original Gears of War, following the carnage (and immediate aftermath) wrought on Emergence Day – where planet Sera was thrust into turmoil as hordes of Locust emerged from the ground. It's a period of Gears history that's long been considered sacrosanct, until now. "There's not a lot out there, so this is a rich storytelling space for us to enter," says creative director Matt Searcy. "We follow E-Day from the perspective of the people there, and we get to be very intimate with the characters. It's a cool way to come back to the Locust and re-enter that period."
The Locust and their Emergence Holes effectively died with Gears of War 3 in 2011, along with one of the most beloved friendships in video game history. "This is also an origin story of the bond that defines the franchise," says brand director Nicole Fawcette. Gears of War: E-Day will pull focus back onto Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, although there's going to be some amount of friction there. "The friendship that you played through in the original trilogy is so enduring, but when you play E-Day it's not going to be exactly as you remember it. Marcus and Dom are coming back from the Pendulum Wars and they've already experienced some loss," she adds.
Dom lost his brother, Carlos, in the civil war waged between the Coalition of Ordered Governments and the Union of Independent Republics over control of the planet's Imulsion supply. And with that death, Marcus lost a friend. "They're dealing with that grief," Fawcette says, "and they haven't really bonded as the best friends that you know them as in the original trilogy. You've never seen them go through this kind of story before." There's also a chance that you've never heard the duo quite like this before either, as Fawcette is elusive on the return of voice actors John DiMaggio and Carlos Ferro: "I can't tell you that,' she chuckles. "Unfortunately, we don't talk about our talent process here while we are in development, so we can't share any of those details today."
Gears of War: E-Day has a lot of ground to cover. The depiction of a war that tears humanity asunder, claiming the lives of millions. A story of survival that gets back to the grim, violent claustrophobia that defined so much of the original trilogy. A chronicling of the friendship that came to define the franchise. And yes, even the weapons we came to love along the way. "In the trailer, you're not seeing the Chainsaw Lancer – that's because it didn't exist then," says Fawcette. "The Chainsaw Lancer was built specifically to take down the Locust, so that's another fun, interesting origin story for us to be able to depict for fans."
A moment of reflection
An origin story that explores the foundations of Gears of War was born out of a moment of reflection, with The Coalition taking a beat to explore its purpose after shipping Gears Tactics and Gears 5 for Xbox Series X. "When we got to the end of all that we were in a pandemic," says Searcy. "We took a beat to reflect on what Gears meant to us, what parts of the franchise we were most excited about and tried to distill all of that down."
The Coalition kept coming back to a single frame from the original Gears of War Mad World trailer – a shot where a towering Corpser emerges from the dark, a lone Marcus Fenix struggling to survive its reach. "We realized that to understand where we wanted to go in the future, we first had to reflect on the past. This shot, more than anything, encompassed the vibe – that feeling people have when they think about Gears. That's where we started," he adds.
"The best place for the franchise to tell that kind of story again was the day the monsters came out of the ground"
"We spent a lot of time talking about the phrase 'Never Fight Alone' which was a term used to describe the co-op mechanic internally during the development of the original game. That was the term later used to describe how important the concept of brotherhood is to Gears – it was even used in marketing campaigns. But we kept coming back to it – it's sort of a North Star for why Gears exists," says Fawcette. "It also gets to the heart of why we continue making this franchise, and we believe in it so much that we use the term as part of our own culture. Because nobody should need to fight alone. We've made an actual monetary commitment to that idea on our side, where we pledge 1% of our net revenues towards mental health advocacy, specifically for suicide prevention and combating loneliness."
'Brotherhood' and 'Brutality'. 'Sadness' and 'Catharsis'. Defining concepts that The Coalition kept coming back to as it tried to figure out where to go next, and determine whether to shift into production of Gears 6 or something else entirely. "They aren't just words to us, like, they fucking mean something," says Searcy on the pursuit of distilling down the raw essence of Gears of War. "These were the same words that fans use to describe the vibe of Gears, and it all brought us back to that one moment in Mad World. And we thought that the best place for the franchise to tell that kind of story again was the day the monsters came out of the ground."
Mad world
The Coalition is quick to stress that Gears of War: E-Day isn't a side story or spinoff. It's the next mainline installment to the franchise and should be thought of as such by players. While the studio isn't able to talk co-op and multiplayer just yet, Searcy is quick to set expectations: "E-Day is the next mainline Gears game that we're building, so you can make some educated guesses there."
I'm sure that there will be plenty of educated guesses being made by the Gears community as The Coalition battles to get E-Day fighting fit in 2025, but one thing we needn't speculate on is the structure. Gears 5 introduced players to a wider world, sprawling spaces that tried to blur the lines between cover-based combat and open exploration. In a sense, as the studio works to reconnect with the original spirit of the series, Gears of War: E-Day is taking a back-to-basics approach.
"The Coalition has worked on Gears for like 10 years, and we've got a really good handle on the things that work well in a Gears of War game – and we still want to keep pushing and trying new things," says Searcy. "Gears has always had these linear, epic moments; we've done a bunch of them and we know how to do them well, and we will absolutely be doing that again. E-Day is set in a city, which is cool for us because Gears works awesome in a city. The opportunity for what we can do with combat, with our level design, and characters is pretty amazing."
"We're going to tear a lot of shit up in E-Day, and Unreal Engine 5 definitely helps us with that"
"It's going to feel new and authentically Gears at the same time," he adds. "We're taking all of the things that we know are awesome about Gears of War and combining it with new techniques, new expertise, and a new game engine." That's key because Gears of War: E-Day will be The Coalition's first full release using Unreal Engine 5 – a platform it collaborated closely on in partnership with Epic Games, as best exemplified in The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience. "The E-Day reveal trailer is in Unreal 5 using our game assets, and that's our visual target."
"The fidelity and scale that we can bring with UE5 is immense compared to what we've done before. Gears has always had a high fidelity bar that pushes boundaries and we'll continue to do that," he continues. "The technology is going to pay off in a really awesome way for players. From the way the world looks and feels, to the things you can do and the places you can go. We're going to tear a lot of shit up in E-Day, and Unreal Engine 5 definitely helps us with that."
Having taken all of this information in, I ask The Coalition whether players could draw a line from Gears of War: E-Day to Black Hawk Down, the Ridley Scott war film that tracks the unraveling of an incursion on a 24-hour timeline. "Black Hawk Down is a great reference point, in terms of the intimacy of that experience," Searcy says, although he does note that the game will track Marcus and Dom across a longer stretch of time.
"It's not a day, it's multiple days – but it is about the event. It's about sticking with these characters from the moment it happens and being with them every minute through the days that play out in the city; it's about experiencing it through their eyes to understand what's happening to them, to the city around them, and the people around them too."
Gears of War: E-Day is targeting a 2025 release window for PC, Game Pass, and Xbox Series X. While you wait, check out more upcoming Xbox Series X games.
