I’ve returned from the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 in LA with a bunch of juicy new game information.
Last week, Microsoft had its best pitch for the Xbox platform yet thanks to an impressive Xbox Games Showcase, 2024. With great trailer after great trailer, the showcase gave us a glimpse into Xbox’s incredible roadmap for upcoming Xbox games with titles like Perfect Dark, Fable , South of Midnight, Avowed and many more. But the headline act came from one of Xbox’s most iconic, long-standing franchises.
The Coalition woke from its slumber with Gears of War: E-Day, aiming to tell the story of the Locust Horde from the very beginning. Emergence Day is an infamous event in Gears of War history, with Gears of War 1 itself taking place fourteen years later. The game is currently shrouded in mystery and intrigue, with an absolutely spectacular Unreal Engine 5 trailer at the start showing off the raw tone of the game.
To find out more details, we spoke with The Coalition’s Creative Director Matt Searcy and Brand Director Nicole Fawcette. Matt and Nicole provided insight into Gears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer plans, the gist of the game’s direction, how it keeps things fresh, and more.
Why Gears of War: E-Day?
For fans who were hopeful to see the conclusion to Kait’s saga from Gears of War 4 and 5, E-Day came as a bit of a surprise. Rumors swirled that we’d be getting Gears of War in some form during the Xbox Showcase, but I don’t think I saw a hint anywhere that it would be a Gears prequel set during Emergence Day.
E-Day is an event in the Gears canon that is often referenced but largely unrepresented in the franchise thus far. Gears of War 1 takes place several years after civilization was essentially nearly destroyed by the Locust Horde. The Locust as an underground reptilian race that ’emerges’ on E-Day and devours entire cities by sinking them underground, using gigantic creatures. The true nature of the Locust is revealed in the original trilogy (which you should definitely play), but E-Day takes us back to a time of panic and chaos. E-Day left humanity completely unprepared, without the proper weapons to fight this type of war, nor the tactics to match the ferocity of the Locust. Matt Searcy and Nicole Fawcette explained some of the Gears of War E-Day turnout to us in LA this past month.
The Coalition has been working on Gears of War for a decade now, noting that in that time the team had shipped Gears of War 4, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, and an Xbox Series X update for Gears 5 in the lead-up to the pandemic. frame. Then Unreal Engine 5 dropped and it was time for something new.
“By the time we finished that, we were already deep into the pandemic,” Searcy recalls. “A lot of people were thinking. We knew going into Unreal 5, we knew there was going to be a major technical update. to build a lot of things from the ground up again and think about the franchise and what it meant to us at The Coalition. That’s why we had elements of the Mad World trailer here, that kind of atmosphere is what we like about the franchise.”
While researching Gears of War down to its component parts, The Coalition realized that much of the story and even the gameplay all comes back to E-Day, an event that takes place 14 years before Gears of War 1.
“E-Day is an origin story,” continued Nicole Fawcette, “it is the origin story of the band that defines the franchise, namely the friendship between Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago. When you first meet them, they’re not the same Marcus and you know, in Gears 1 they’ve been fighting the Locust for fourteen years.”
In Gears of War: E-Day, Marcus and Dom have just returned from the Pendulum Wars, a global resource conflict between two of Sera’s most important superpowers. Millions were lost in this conflict, and this conflict saw the development of insane weapons such as the Hammer of Dawn orbital laser. Humanity has barely enjoyed a two-month reprieve after this war before E-Day takes place.
“Peace was declared over Sera, and they had a hopeful future ahead of them. There is also trauma and sadness from the Pendulum Wars, stemming from the death of Dom’s brother Carlos. Carlos was Dom’s brother, but he was the best friend from Marcus. So Marcus and Dom are not yet the best friends we know.”
“So the trailer set our emotional tone as well as our visual tone,” Nicole continued. Indeed, we learned this past week that the trailer for Gears of War: E-Day was entirely in-engine, made use of in-game assets and lighting, and should be a good representation of the kind of quality players can expect as the game launches. It should also be a good representation of the horror.
“You can see that we wanted to reposition the Locust drone as truly scary, terrifying creatures. People remember Gears of War 1 for having these high moments of horror and fear. We’re going back to that darker, grittier vibe that people have in mind when they think of the franchise.”
Nicole emphasized that while they ramp up the horror, they don’t abandon the emotional aspects of the franchise, recalling some of the game’s most painful sequences involving Dom and his wife Maria from Gears 2, or the climax from Gears 3. The nice thing about Gears is that it can combine both things. It can tell dark and gruesome stories of human suffering, but also offer hope, and what it feels like to have a team behind you. having moments where you saw off a grasshopper’s head and it felt so damn good.
How will Gears of War: E-Day differ from its predecessors?
A question I got a lot on social media this past week was, “Will Gears of War: E-Day have multiplayer?” Personally, I found the question surprising, but we live in strange times of subverted expectations. Every Gears of War has competitive multiplayer in some form, and more often than not, a PvE multiplayer mode in Horde. Still, I secretly asked Matt Searcy if players can expect Gears’ frenetic multiplayer battles to return. I say secretly, because the team really wasn’t ready to delve deeper into gameplay modes and stuff like that, but Matt did have some reassurances for those involved.
“I would say this is the next Gears game,” Searcy points out. “Gears has a pretty clear DNA for gameplay modes, so you can probably anticipate where we’re going with E-Day.”
There are indeed some things about Gears that will never change, like competitive multiplayer, but I was also curious to see how E-Day will subvert expectations. It’s true that we’ve never experienced E-Day itself, but fighting Locust in a crumbling city certainly sounds pretty familiar. I asked Matt and Nicole how they would find ways to bring something new while also delving into the past.
“I agree, there are many things we can do. Story-wise, there’s a fourteen-year gap between E-Day and Gears 1. Even Gears Tactics was caught up in the war for a few years. E-Day is not a world that It is a beautiful world, with people in a time of peace. We see the Locust introduced through the eyes of people who have never seen them before and don’t know what’s going on,” Matt explained. “We’re also going to change the gameplay stuff. We’ve been working on the franchise for ten years, so we have experience revising enemy types, as well as adding new weapons and maybe even new enemies. I will do all those things.”
Nicole interjected with hints about the evolution of Gears’ most iconic weapon, the Chainsaw Lancer. Which was indeed a product born out of necessity in the E-Day era. “E-Day is the origin story of many things, including the Chainsaw Lancer. We’ll see that the Chainsaw Lancer was actually built after the fact, as there were no weapons that could pierce their super-thick skins. We’ll tell the story of how that came about, and yes, you’ll be able to use it too.”
The Coalition duo were adamant that they weren’t ready to talk about the finer points of Gears of War: E-Day, but I couldn’t resist highlighting some of the more ‘experimental’ elements of Gears 5 to take. The fact that it went a bit broader with side missions in very broadly linear areas, the fact that you could ‘upgrade’ Jack and spec him up for extra abilities, and so on. I tried to explain to them whether Gears of War: E-Day will simply return to the gameplay design of Gears of War, or whether it will do something new.
“We think we have a pretty good handle on what makes Gears feel great, but that doesn’t mean we should reduce Gears to its simplest possible version. There are some things we tried that didn’t work great, and some things we have tried that has actually turned out quite well. We know that there is a core, linear ‘against all odds’ flowing through it, but there is room for us to play with that. We have a whole city to play with. “Gears of War: E-Day is going to feel like a great Gears game that people have in mind. But it will also feel like a new game. It will take on a new feeling. , it will feel fresh and good at the same time.”
Will Raam show up? I ask. “We’re not really answering story questions right now…” the duo says, grinning.
A return to Gears of War
I asked Nicole, as brand director, why they went back to ‘Gears of War’ after two games simply called ‘Gears’. “It’s a return, right?” She says, “we’re returning to our roots. That’s really the answer.”
I asked if Gears of War: E-Day starts a new trilogy. After all, it takes place fourteen years before Gears of War 1. That’s a lot of stories you could digest in that decade and a half. “We are focused on this and are now doing everything we can to decide what the next match will be.” Matt said, as Nicole interjected: “We’re not backing away from the stories of Gears 4 and 5, though. We’ve just spent time thinking about the stories we want to tell, and we can adapt the franchise from both sides. I’m excited about telling this story, and hopefully fans will love this story too.”
At the time of writing, the Gears of War: E-Day trailer has been viewed 1.3 million times. That is a lot of of Gears fans. Gears of War is one of Xbox’s biggest and most iconic franchises, and The Coalition has taken its place as one of Microsoft’s core pillars within its gaming organization. The coalition joined Playground Games and effectively carried over the Xbox One generation, shipping mountains of content in a short period of time. The Coalition is also credited with its technical expertise, helping other Xbox studios take Unreal Engine to the next level, from Ninja Theory to Undead Labs.
I’m incredibly nostalgic for the Gears franchise, but I’m also eager to experience a fresh take on the series. I enjoyed the new features that Gears 5 explored, and I have no doubt that Gears of War: E-Day will take a similar approach to changing things up. After all, we’re not exactly expert locust hunters in this area.
Gears of War: E-Day has no known launch window, but you can expect it to release via Xbox Game Pass on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC in the coming years.