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Gears of War Devs Reveal Series Timeline and How the Gears Universe Can Grow

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Since The Coalition took the Gears of War franchise under its belt in 2015, the team has released Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Gears of War 4, Gears 5, co-developed two spinoff games, and has overseen two new books and comic series. It's been a busy five years for the team, and they've been met with great success. But between all the different mediums, that’s a lot of story in a relatively short time frame. How does developer The Coalition keep track of all that Gears lore? And how can they expand the series while shifting protagonists and still build meaningful stories?

In just the span of a few years, Gears has seen three different lead characters between J.D. Fenix, Kait Diaz, and upcoming Gears Tactics' Gabe Diaz. IGN sat down with two members of The Coalition, Gears Franchise Narrative Director Bonnie Jean Mah and Gears Tactics' Design Director Tyler Bielman, to find out how they decide who leads Gears’ stories, how they choose where to tell those stories, and what the future of the series could look like.

The Gears of War saga began with Marcus Fenix, a soldier we saw go from prisoner to military hero as he led a team to destroy the Locust and Lambent at the end of Epic Games' original trilogy. Then, The Coalition brought back the franchise and set it 25 years later with Marcus' son J.D. in the leading role.

"We could have picked [Gears 4] up as a direct sequel from Gears of War 3," Mah said, "but Rod [Fergusson] made the decision to jump us ahead by 25 years, which is a really interesting decision because then that forced a whole bunch of rethinking about our universe; who the enemies are, where the characters are, what the heck is going on. So, that already set a really good precedent for Gears of War "thinks" like that. We can think about jumping ahead in time, we're not beholden to just telling a very linear [story]."

Check the link for more.
 

T-Cake

Member
I've never been able to understand the Gears lore but then I haven't really tried to find out. I keep hearing things like "Pendulum Wars" and such but haven't a clue what it's all about.
 

SpartanN92

Banned
I've never been able to understand the Gears lore but then I haven't really tried to find out. I keep hearing things like "Pendulum Wars" and such but haven't a clue what it's all about.

70 something year long world war amongst the humans of Sera over the energy substance “Emulsion”. The war came to an end with the invention of the Hammer of Dawn and Emergence Day.
 

BeardGawd

Banned
I love Gears gameplay but feel there's not enough being done to spice things up. Why such a heavy focus Locusts? Why not have a game with all new enemies (an alien invasion or something). There should be all new story arcs and all new enemies every couple games or so.
 

SpartanN92

Banned
Gears had the potential to be Microsoft’s Uncharted in terms of well polished cinematic games, the problem is they have kind of ruined it with the woke bullshit and stupid plot.

Kait Diaz is a terrible main character.
 

pr0cs

Member
I've never been able to understand the Gears lore but then I haven't really tried to find out. I keep hearing things like "Pendulum Wars" and such but haven't a clue what it's all about.
The books are really good. Karen Traviss is a military correspondent so even though the characters are beefcake central the stories are reasonably written from a combat perspective.
The books cover the pendulum wars, the initial fight with the UIR, emergence day and the fallout of everything leading up to gears 3 and a bit beyond.
There are lots of content to write some pretty cool stuff in there game wise.
They haven't really covered ANYTHING about Pesang (non beefy cog supporters more focused on quiet assassination and stealth).
Gears gets a bad Rep for having a weak story but mostly because they didn't explain the history well in the games
 
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