Gears of War: E-Day Will Be Linear, to Feature 100x More Environment and Character Details Than Gears 5

Capping off the Xbox Games Showcase was none other than Gears of War: E-Day (Gears 6), which featured a cinematic trailer showing us a younger Marcus Fenix.

While open world games are all the rage these days, don’t expect developer The Coalition to follow suit with the franchise’s next mainline entry. Creative Director Matt Searcy confirmed that Gears of War E-Day will entirely be a linear game stating, “We make linear stories for a reason. It’s about taking an authored story and involving you with those characters and driving through it with gameplay. It’ll be linear..”

As for the trailer, it’s all built in-engine Searcy confirmed. The Coalition Studio Technical Director Kate Rayner even mentioned that GoW: E-Day, which is powered by Unreal Engine 5, includes over 100 times more environment and character details than Gears 5. Players can expect hardware raytraced lighting, reflections and shadows, next-gen destruction and gore, and cutting-edge animation tech as part of the upcoming Gears of War title’s graphical capabilities.

In the same interview, Gears Franchise Director Nicole Fawcette also confirmed that they are not abandoning the stories from Gears 4 and Gears 5, and added they are making the prequel since it is the direction the studio is most passionate about.

More early info for Gears of War: E-Day:

• Not a spin-off but a new entry in the mainline Gears of War saga
• The Coalition is “content” with the stories told in Gears 4 and 5 and “isn’t abandoning them”, but making this game was opportunity that “felt too good to miss”
• Team is looking to recreate and improve on the series classic cover shooting, revisiting the tone of older Gears with “truly next-gen tech”
• Takes place 14 years before the first game, tackling how an ill-prepared Sera responds to a surprise Locust invasion
• Very intentional in recasting the Locusts not simply as foes but as “living nightmares”
• Design team prioritized redefining the Locust Drone, which had become simple fodder as the series progressed, into “something fearsome, physically intimidating, and utterly brutal”
• The fear of encountering the Locust for the first time is central to the game (desperation as Marcus fights a Drone for the first time)
• Hints that the origin of the Lancer (chainsaw, etc) will be part of the story
• The narrative follows the early stages of Marcus and Dom’s brotherhood, bonding over the loss of Dom’s older brother Carlos (who was close with Marcus)

There’s no release date pegged for the game just yet, but we do know it’ll be on Xbox Series X|S and will also be available on Game Pass on day one.

[Source: Game File (login required), shinobi602]

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