Gears of War veteran reveals they've returned to the series for mysterious project

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Joshua Ortega has subtly announced they're back working on Gears of War

Gears of War
(Image credit: Epic Games)

Gears of War veteran Joshua Ortega has quietly revealed that they've returned to the Xbox Games Studio's series. 

In a tweet, which quote retweeted a previous thread from Ortega about their work on Gears of War, Ortega simply tweeted: "Once again it’s on!" Although this doesn't reveal exactly what the former Gears writer is working on now, it does hint to the fact that they've joined they're back working on the series once again.

If you're not familiar, or haven't read the original Twitter thread from 2019, Ortega joined the series during Gears of War 2's development. As the tweet reveals, Ortega wrote and co-directed the Gears sequel including all of the in-game collectibles and the initial teaser trailer. They also consulted on the game's TV ads and marketing campaigns, and even wrote its manual. 

Ortega then stayed with the series, later going on to write the first 13 issues of the Gears of War comic book prequel for DC Comics, and whilst alongside a plethora of other writers are artists, came up with the characters Jace Stratton, Michael Barrick, Lt. Draper, Gil Gonzalez, Alex Brand, and more. 

Once Gears of War 3 rolled around, Ortega says they worked on the game's story and narrative level design with fellow well-known Gears veteran Cliff Bleszinski before going on to use more of their talents on the franchise. We'd love to tell you that Ortega has returned to the series to work on Gears 6, but at the time of writing this, there's not been a new Gears game announced yet. 

The last crumb of information we had about this highly rumored project was that developer The Coalition had scrapped multiple projects in favor of Gears of War. However, not long before this, rumors of a new Gears of War game were shot down by an Xbox exec - so who knows what to believe right now. 

There's also talk of the Gears of War series getting Halo: The Master Chief Collection treatment, but this is also yet to be confirmed. What we do know though is that Gears of War is getting a live-action movie and "adult animated series" from Netflix - so there's always a chance Ortega could be working on one of these projects, or perhaps something completely new. 

While we wait to hear more, find out all about the Gears of War card game being developed by the studio behind Elden Ring tabletop adaptation.

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.