Xbox’s Gears of War franchise has long been celebrated for both its campaigns and its multiplayer. The original Gears of War trilogy is often regarded as some of the best exclusive games for the Xbox 360 and the overall seventh console generation. Meanwhile, Gears of War 1’s multiplayer was so popular on the Xbox 360 that it rivaled the likes of Halo 2 as the most popular multiplayer game until the release of Halo 3. With the upcoming release of Gears of War: E-Day, however, The Coalition may have a difficult choice to make regarding the game’s multiplayer compared to developments seen in recent Gears titles. This choice is to include only characters who appear in E-Day or include characters who appear decades later.
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Gears of War’s Multiplayer Character History
Unlike other contemporary multiplayer games of the time, Gears of War 1’s multiplayer had gamers choose to play from a selection of characters and Locust drone troops seen in the campaign. Other games of the late 2000s and early 2010s typically had players create or customize their own character based on factions or soldier types, such as Halo’s Spartans and Elites or Call of Duty’s SAS and Spetsnaz. 2008’s Gears of War 2 was the first Gears game to feature playable characters who don’t appear in the game’s campaign or who died in prior titles such as Anthony Carmine and General RAAM. This set a precedent that would be carried over to most future Gears of War multiplayer systems.
2011’s Gears of War 3 was the first game in the series to include characters in multiplayer who have never appeared in any previous Gears of War game, multiplayer, or expanded media with the introduction of the Golden Gear. Gears of War 3 additionally established the concept of DLC introducing new multiplayer characters such as Alicia Valera and Michael Barrick from RAAM’s Shadow and including variants of existing characters such as Thrashball Cole Train.
2013’s Gears of War: Judgment introduced the concept of characters from other games crossing over into Gears’ multiplayer with the inclusion of Bulletstorm’s Grayson Hunt and Trishka Novak. Similarly, 2019’s Gears 5 introduced the concept of characters from films crossing over into multiplayer, such as Sarah Connor, Grace, T-800, and Rev-9 from Terminator: Dark Fate.
Gears of War multiplayer systems have included several celebrities from the real world as playable characters, such as El-P, Killer Mike, Dave Bautista, Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods.
The Potential Character Roster of Gears of War: E-Day
Little is currently known about Gears of War: E-Day’s gameplay and multiplayer other than the Locust are expected to appear in a more horrifying way than ever before. The Coalition will likely release some information on E-Day’s gameplay soon, given that it’s been almost a year since the game’s announcement. While players wait for that information, it can be hypothesized who will appear on Gears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer roster. For most of the franchise’s existence, the multiplayer systems have continuously expanded their roster with new characters, dead ones, variants, and even those who never appeared in Gears media beforehand. However, Gears of War multiplayer has only handled the issue of a prequel once before with Gears of War: Judgment.
Besides the short Aftermath campaign, most of Gears of War: Judgment was set roughly 14 years before the original trilogy of games. Despite this prequel setting, Judgment still included characters who would appear in later games but only those who were active somewhere else on Sera during Judgment’s events, such as Minh Young Kim. Characters who were enlisted later such as Benjamin Carmine or Dizzy, did not appear in Judgment. Given E-Day’s direction of getting back to Gears of War’s roots, The Coalition may lean towards featuring only characters who were active around Emergence Day in its multiplayer. However, based on the microtransaction trends seen in Gears 5, The Coalition could include Swarm-era characters as unlocks or paid DLC.
Characters Who May Appear in Gears of War: E-Day’s Multiplayer
So far, young Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago have been confirmed to appear in Gears of War: E-Day, but more classic Gears of War characters will likely appear in E-Day’s multiplayer. Based on how E-Day will take place at the beginning of the Locust War, E-Day’s multiplayer could possibly feature several characters who were active at that time, such as Colonel Hoffman, Sofia Hendrick, Damon Baird, and Tai Kaliso. In terms of Locust characters, the multiplayer could feature the traditional Locust Drone ranks as well as Locust superiors such as General Karn, General RAAM, Ukkon, Skorge, and more. However, while new characters introduced in E-Day will further populate the game’s roster, The Coalition could miss out on featuring some fan-favorite characters from Swarm-era titles for newer fans.
- Released
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2025
- ESRB
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m
- Publisher(s)
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Xbox Game Studios