While The Coalition is working hard on the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day, former franchise game designer Cliff Bleszinski has praised the studio for the game’s direction. In an interview with The Expansion Pass, he spoke about how the Locust being treated as a legitimate threat again is the right choice for the Gears of War franchise, and noted that the DeeBees that were fought in Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 were underwhelming enemies.
“I think they’re doing the right thing, going back to give the people what they want. We’ve talked a lot about E-Day, there’s been stories written about it,” said Bleszinski. “But to experience that, I think the possibilities for cinematic moments are tremendous with what they’re doing. I got goosebumps when I saw Marcus falling, reaching out for Dom’s hand — and all the comments online, people just loved it, because they had the ultimate gaming bromance. And to go back to that, as opposed to just putting zombie Dom as a multiplayer option… Come on, man.”
Overall, with Gears of War: E-Day, Bleszinski believes that The Coalition is “righting the ship” by leaving behind “those stupid robots” and the Lambent, and instead going back to the original iconic enemies of the first few Gears of War games. He went on to praise the game’s trailers and the return of Marcus Fenix as the primary protagonist.
“I think they’re really righting the ship,” he said. “You’re not going to be fighting those stupid robots or the Lambent. It’s going to be about making the Locust scary again. And seeing Marcus struggle with just one Locust in that trailer, I think that was brilliant. And showing the hopelessness of life on Sera, the ‘Welcome Home’ banner on the wall — hey, congratulations, the Pendulum Wars are over, but psych. Now you’ve got a bigger, scarier threat to deal with. This is what happens when humans fight too much: a third party comes in and screws everything up. I have high hopes for it, and I can’t wait to see what they put out.”
More details about Gears of War: E-Day are slated to be revealed on June 7th, where Microsoft will host a special Direct showcase specially for the game following its own Xbox Games Showcase. While we don’t quite know what will be shown off during the Direct, it is likely that Microsoft is getting ready to announce a proper release date aside from its general 2026 window.
In a recent interview with the Official Xbox Podcast, Xbox’s chief content officer, Matt Booty, spoke about the upcoming Direct, and while he didn’t give too much away, he confirmed that it will be around 30 minutes in length and dense with information.
“I’ll say that we’ve got the Gears Direct coming, and after seeing that, we’ve probably got like a full 30 minutes, which is really great,” he said. “And I don’t know. I just love everybody in that studio, the work they’re doing. I’m excited about the game, and we’re going to have a fantastic, full 30 minutes of stuff to see.”
Gears of War: E-Day is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. It will be the first game in the franchise to come to a PlayStation platform.
