Gears of War is Following in Halo’s Footsteps, But It Should Eventually Stray From the Path

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 29, 2024 10 Views 7 Min Read
Gears of War is Following in Halo's Footsteps, But It Should Eventually Stray From the Path



In the late 2010s, Xbox’s flagship franchises Gears of War and Halo diverted their game series’ trajectory following widespread fan outcry. In late 2015, 343 Industries released Halo 5: Guardians, which turned out to not be reflective of the game’s marketing and featured a story wherein Cortana was revealed to be alive, bent on galactic domination.

In late 2019, The Coalition released Gears 5, which continued the Swarm’s story but focused less on the Fenix family with Kait Diaz as the main protagonist. Both of these narrative trends disappointed many fans, leading Xbox to sideline those plotlines first with Halo Infinite and now with the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day. However, The Coalition should commit to completing the Swarm’s storyline in Gears 6 instead of having the conflict resolved off-screen.

gears of war e day avoid prequel pitfall

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How Gears of War: E-Day Can Avoid a Common Prequel Pitfall

The main story of Gears of War: E-Day is hidden in the shadow, but it will hopefully avoid an issue that plagues many prequels.

The State of Sera Following Gears 5

Roughly 42 years after Emergence Day, Sera is once again engulfed in a global war with the rise of the new Swarm faction. Being made up of reborn Locust remnants, mutated creatures, and humans turned Swarm drones, the Swarm is striving to complete the Locust’s goal of destroying humanity and taking Sera’s surface world for their own. At the end of Gears 5, Diaz discovers her familial connection to the Locust Queen Myrrah and inadvertently resurrects her consciousness in her mother Reyna Diaz’s now Swarm-mutated body. COG forces, meanwhile, were able to reactivate the Hammer of Dawn satellites and temporarily push back Swarm forces, but not before Myrrah killed either JD Fenix or Del Walker.

As Diaz and Marcus Fenix conclude Gears 5’s campaign with a renewed effort towards eliminating the Locust threat for good, the Swarm Conflict briefly continued in Gears 5’s story DLC Hivebusters in 2020. Here, players followed the troubled beginnings of Scorpio Squad, made up of former Onyx Guard member Jeremiah Keegan, cousin of Locust War hero Tai Kaliso Lahni Kaliso, and former Outsider Leslie “Mac” Macallister. Together, the three were tasked by retired Colonel Hoffman and Augustus Cole’s daughter Hana Cole to find a successful way to destroy Swarm hives on the South Islands of Pahanu and Galangi. There they discovered that the gigantic Wakaatu bird’s green venom could be used to develop a gas that can destroy any and all Swarm matter in a hive.

The Eventual Gears 6 Following Gears of War: E-Day

Immediately following Gears of War: E-Day’s announcement at the 2024 Xbox Showcase, The Coalition confirmed that not only will E-Day be the next mainline installment in the Gears of War franchise, but that they will not abandon the storylines of Gears of War 4 and Gears 5. However, since Gears of War: E-Day doesn’t have an official release date yet, fans might have to wait a while for Gears 6 to release. Gears 6 may not even be the next mainline Gears of War game in the series, depending on how E-Day ends. The end of the Swarm Invasion may even be concluded after Gears of War 4’s 10th anniversary if E-Day releases sometime in 2026.

Despite Gears 6’s release being some time out with Gears of War: E-Day’s development, E-Day may hint at possible story threads to be explored in the second trilogy’s eventual conclusion. While E-Day will be set 42 years before Gears 5, Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago might find a forgotten MacGuffin in the game that could be later found by Diaz in Gears 6 to help end the Swarm conflict. Gears 6 may also be structured similarly to Gears of War 3 with humanity once more at the brink of extinction, desperately seeking a doomsday device to swiftly wipe out the Swarm, just as the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon was designed to destroy both the Locust and Lambent.

Gears of War: E-Day’s Potential Gameplay Influence on Gears 6

In Gears of War: E-Day, the Locust will return to being the primary antagonists but appear as formidable “living nightmares” compared to how players got used to grubs in the original trilogy. The Locust will essentially appear more horrific than ever before in E-Day. Based on this terrifying prospect, The Coalition may make the Swarm similarly horrifying in Gears 6 to make the end of the Swarm Invasion appear more like a nerve-racking apocalypse. No matter how Gears of War: E-Day is received by fans, The Coalition should finish the Swarm’s storyline properly in Gears 6 to properly conclude the Gears of War saga.

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