Gears of War is one of the biggest series on Xbox, with the Lancer and its chainsaw bayonet being about as recognizable as Halo’s iconic Warthog. As if there was any doubt the series would continue, Microsoft confirmed it during E3 2018.
Called Gears 5 rather than Gears 'of War' 5 (for no other significant reason than that it's more streamlined and in line with what fans are calling it) this new game in the series will have a female protagonist, Kait. Marcus Phoenix will still appear, but Kait will take the starring role as she takes her team on a personal mission which will continue on from the emotional ending of Gears of War 4.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The fifth game in the main Gears of War series, potentially acting as the middle chapter in a second trilogy
- When’s it out? 2019
- What can I play it on? Xbox One, and PC (maybe. See below for more details)
Gears of War 5 trailer and screenshots
Microsoft and The Coalition studio head Rod Ferguson have confirmed Gears of War 5 during the Xbox Keynote at E3 2018. To go alongside the announcement we got a new trailer starring Kait Diaz, Marcus Fenix and the rest of the Gears crew. Locusts will again play a major role in the series when the game comes out in 2019.
Can't wait until 2019? There will be two other Gears games coming soon - Gears Pop and Gears Tactics. The former is a mobile spin-off of the franchise that will be developed alongside Funko while the latter will be a tactical game similar, most likely, to the XCOM franchise.
Gears of War 5 release date
Now that Gears 5 has been announced, we know that it'll be coming some time in 2019. There's nothing more specific than that just yet.
Gears of War 5 news and features
E3 2018
Gears of War 5 was confirmed during E3 2018, and will be called Gears 5 to be released in 2019. Following on from the ending of Gears of War 4, this game will follow Kait as the star of a new trilogy. Breaking her chain of command, the game will follow Kait as she breaks the chain of command and takes her squad on a decidedly personal mission.
There could be three Gears of War games announced at E3
You know how it goes, you wait for something and then a bunch of them come at once. There are rumors that the Xbox press conference in E3 could see the announcement of three new Gears of War games. According to Polygon fans could see Gears of War 5, a battle royale Gears of War, and a real-time strategy Gears of War all announced on the same night. Though naturally not all for the same release date. We don't know whether these rumors are true but we don't have long to find out.
Job listings
Several recent job listings at Splash Damage have set the rumor mill in motion, suggesting that work on Gears of War 5 is now underway.
Splash Damage is the studio that worked on the multiplayer side of Gears of War 4 and it's now looking to fill roles such as associate art director, storyboard artist, cinematic artist and cinematic lead.
Given that the job listings explicitly state the work is for the Gears of War franchise, there's good reason for fan hopes to be high. That said, it's not impossible that they could be for a non-numbered addition to the franchise, like Gears of War: Judgement.
At the very least, Gears of War fans using Xbox Game Pass will be happy to know that any future game in the franchise will be included on their subscription following Microsoft's confirmation that all first-party exclusives, current and future, would be included on the service.
PC Gaming
Microsoft has been pushing its PC Play Anywhere program, that sees you able to take your Xbox games and play them on Windows PCs. Gears of War 4 made use of it way back in 2016, so there’s no reason why Microsoft would drop the service for a sequel. (Which is a nice change, considering Gears of War 2 and 3 never saw releases on PC.)
Story
Gears of War 4 ended with an air of expectation. Rather than eradicating a threat, the game ended with the establishment of a new enemy: the Swarm, an evolution of the original trilogy’s locust. Everything was being set up for a greater conflict between this new race and the last vestiges of the human factions on Sera - the COG and the Outsiders, two groups that were at odds with one another.
Gears of War 5 would have to continue that conflict, revealing the larger aim of the Swarm and see the two human factions forge a union to combat the growing threat.
What we want to see from Gears of War 5
Unanswered questions
Gears of War 4 ended with JD and Kait fighting their way through the Swarm to try and save Reyna, Kait’s mother, only to find it was too late. Reyna wasn’t dead but the Swarm were trying to integrate her into their hive and removing her would kill her. But, at Reyna’s request, JD and Kait tear her away from the Swarm.
Before she does, Reyna teases a great mystery: she gives Kait a necklace that she says she was given by her own mother, Kait’s grandmother. The symbol is one Gears fans will recognize looks remarkably similar to one worn by Queen Myrrah of the Locust, your nemesis in original trilogy. A Gears sequel would have to explore this further – are Reyna and Kait descendants of the Locust?
There are hints that Adam Fenix, Marcus’ father, JD’s grandfather was close to Myrrah before the wars, so there’s a chance that Locusts and humans coupled but it would be new territory for a Gears of War game to explore.
Wish List
Besides continuing the campaign story, we’d like to see more of the changed world we were introduced to in Gears of War 4. Taking place 25 years after the original trilogy, the sequel is set in a world where humans were forced to abandon fossil fuels and collect together in small martial law-governed encampments and violent windstorms sweep the land, tearing up anything left unprotected.
Gears of War 5 should explore that further, showing us how desperate humans are trying to fight off the Swarm on a planet that is trying to kill them.
The Coalition worked to make Gears of War 4’s battlefields more dynamic places, giving you the ability to pull enemies out of cover and leap forward with short range charges. A sequel should continue this, giving players greater freedom of movement and ways to break stalemates between human and Swarm forces.
The original Gears of War cemented the cover shooter as a subgenre, now its sequels have to rattle its foundations by taking away the safety of sitting behind a low wall.
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