OXM
SAYS
We thought we knew what to
expect from Gears 5, given the
series’ long history. But we were
both surprised and impressed by
the scope of the campaign, great
narrative and wealth of
multiplayer. We’ll be playing this
one for months to come.Chris
BurkeOne thing made clear from our
time with The Coalition is that the
team really cares about Gears
and its future. The steps the devs
are making to make the series
all-inclusive is a leap in the right
direction and something that
should be celebrated.Drew
SleepI love the idea of the game being
accessible to all levels of player,
and no matter how familiar you
are with the Gears Of War series.
The different multiplayer options
are impressive and I’m already
really enjoying the new Escape
mode in particular.Adam
BryantBELOW The frozen
wastes of Sera
are particularly
pretty at this
time of year.BELOW The skiff
is Kait’s way of
getting around
the wastes of
Sera. And it’s a
lot of fun.generational, platform and release
model boundaries. The lessons
learned here will likely reverberate
out across the first-party studios
such as 343 Industries, Turn 10 and
Playground, largely because of how
quickly Game Pass has changed the
state of play for The Coalition, for
Microsoft and for the future of the
Xbox platform. “Game Pass kind of
changes everything for us,” Fergusson
continues. “We are launching to an
audience of millions of people. [Game
Pass subscribers] can boot up their
Xbox One and all of a sudden the
entire Gears Of War library is already
there waiting for them. Maybe they’ve
played a game in the series before,
and maybe they haven’t – it opens up
a whole new audience for us.
“One of the things we had to look
at was... how do we take Gears Of
War, which is traditionally a very
hardcore game, and say, ‘Hey, new
player that has never played Gears
before, Gears 5 is actually the
best one to start with,’” Fergusson
explains, noting that wasn’t the only
challenge the studio faced because
of Microsoft’s burgeoning subscriptionservice. “But we also have to sustain
that engagement over the long haul
because of Game Pass. It’s not like
it was when I was shipping games
18 years ago, where you just put it
in a box, you’re done and then you
went on vacation,” he says with a
smile. “Now it’s about delivering a
service. New subscribers are coming
into Game Pass all the time so the
question becomes, ‘How do we keep
that momentum going?’”All-out war
Rod Fergusson is only too aware of
how important a moment this was.
The series has long been seen as a
staple of the Xbox brand, but never
has Gears faced an audience pool as
large as this. “The idea that millions
of people have instant access to your
game, and who have potentially never
played a Gears game before, really
put a focus on approachability for us,”
says Fergusson.
“The spark of this idea actually
came from the director of production
here, Christi Rae,” Fergusson
elaborates as he begins to reminisce
about the genesis of Gears 5. As theIt’s also the most ambitious game in
the series’ long history, too, a bold,
expansive package of content that’s
designed to live on long past launch,
and aimed at a far larger audience than
Gears has ever enjoyed before.
The studio only had a little over two
years to make that dream a reality, but
the game that launched in September
not only succeeded in realising its
creative vision, but it also works to
showcase the future of Microsoft’s
next-gen strategy. That’s particularly
important as we look towards Project
Scarlett and a world without such firm060 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE