E-Day May Be a Way to Delay The Inevitable

The announcement of Gears of War: E-Day in June 2024 came as a pleasant surprise to many fans of the longstanding franchise, with the project causing a lot of clear anticipation that is only set to grow over the coming months. While fans are still yet to see things like a solid gameplay overview of the project, its core characters have been enough to get players on board, with E-Day crucially putting the likes of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago back in the franchise hot-seat.

As a prequel, Gears of War: E-Day will have a lot of breathing room away from the modern storyline and events of recent franchise releases, with the game’s development seemingly being focused around the series’ traditional roots, much to the excitement of long-term fans. The narrative prospects of exploring the earlier days of Marcus Fenix following the emergence of the Locust threat are truly fascinating, and crucially give the character the love he deserves before Gears of War has to move on completely.

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.Gears of War: E-Day Will Likely Be a Swan Song For the Franchise’s Most Iconic Characters

Gears of War: E-Day is currently aiming for a late-2026 release window, being set to end a seven-year wait since the release of the franchise’s last mainline entry. The original Gears of War released almost two decades ago, and the series has built up a huge reputation that has come with its own lofty expectations. Epic Games and The Coalition have introduced a wide range of core gameplay and narrative changes over the years to keep things fresh, to varying levels of success.

2019’s Gears 5 marked a bold new direction for Gears of War, with its much larger explorable levels and focus on Kait Diaz as its major protagonist, creating a distinct identity that brought praise as well as divided opinion. Of course, many fans had become used to Marcus Fenix as the face of the Gears of War franchise over the course of three mainline games, though Gears of War 4 had already set a new precedent by instead featuring Marcus’ son J.D. as its main character.

Almost three in-game decades have passed between the story of the first Gears and Gears 5, and, while Marcus was not present as the protagonist of the 2019 title, he still appeared as a strong narrative presence at 63 years old. The passage of time throughout the mainline Gears franchise makes the focus on a new generation of fighters a logical and inevitable aspect of the series’ evolution, yet the prequel premise of the upcoming E-Day will give one crucial last glimpse into Marcus’ character before he is phased out of the franchise entirely.

Gears of War: E-Day Can Add a New Dynamic to Marcus Before He Exits the Franchise

As the name suggests, Gears of War: E-Day will cover the immediate aftermath of the Locust horde emerging onto the surface of Sera and devastating the planet. This fascinating and deeply important aspect of the Gears of War story is more than deserving of its own release, and seeing Marcus and Dom 14 years before the events of the first game seems like a perfect way to further flesh out these longstanding characters before the IP’s story extends too far into the future.

It seems very likely that the next mainline Gears of War game will ultimately have to address Marcus’ death or removal from the series’ major events due to his age, and while this will bring a sad close to such an iconic era of storytelling, E-Day adds an excellent final surge of representation for the character. Despite the potential division that might still linger within future mainline Gears projects that move completely past the original characters, the upcoming E-Day seems like a title that can fully embrace the roots of the franchise while making its next era sting a little less.

Systems

Released

2025

ESRB

m

Publisher(s)

Xbox Game Studios