Gears Of War: E-Day Will ‘Scare The S*** Out Of You’

The “one more thing” at the Xbox showcase during Summer Game Fest was a reveal trailer for Gears of War: E-Day, a prequel to the original Gears trilogy starring everyone’s favorite bros, Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. Naturally, Gears fans (myself included) were very excited at the reveal, though it’s not clear when it will launch. Kotaku got a chance to sit down with creative director Matt Searcy and brand director Nicole Faucette to get a better idea of why The Coalition decided to go back to the original characters and what players can expect from the first Gears of War title built in Unreal Engine 5.

Here’s what we learned. Searcy tells us that The Coalition continued to work on Gears 5 for well over a year after its 2019 launch, and that shaped their decision to pivot to E-Day. ‘When we finished all that stuff we were actually pretty far into the [covid] pandemic.

So, a lot of people at the studio were saying we’re just gonna take a beat and reflect.” The natural progression might seem to be toward Gears 6 (especially considering the cliffhanger at the end of 5). But, the team instead found inspiration in an important, but relatively unmined, aspect of Gears lore: Emergence Day, or E-Day, when the bad-guy Locusts first emerged from underground on the planet Sera.

“We wanted to make something that really went to the heart of what people have in their heads when they play Gears,” Faucette said. “We spent a lot of time listening to how fans talk ab.