It turns out, Gears of War 6 could have shot for the stars in an alternate timeline, by taking COGs to space and exploring the solar system. However, with Gears of War E-day taking the spotlight as the next game in the series by The Coalition, it looks like we’re not quite ready to see that yet.
This info stems from Podcast Unlocked, specifically a chat between hosts Ryan McCaffrey, Destin Legarie, Stella Chung, and former Gears of War lead Rod Fergusson. Fergusson, with the latter – now working on Diablo 4 under Activision Blizzard – giving some insight into the story plans in place for Gears 6 before his departure.
“It’s a little surreal to have something come out about Gears that I haven’t been involved in,” Fergusson said, “You know I spent 15 years with Gears of War and basically every game that was made, I think 9 or 10 total. I’ve been involved in all of them, so the idea there’s something coming out that I had nothing to do with, it’ll be interesting to see it as a fan.
“I kind of thought they were going to do the plan while I was there, which was go for Gears 6, but to see it come back with E-day is really smart. […] I was just getting us off Sera. That was something we were building to. If you pay attention during the Gears 5 story, you’ll notice the UIR technology. We were laying the seeds in the ground that by inhereting this UIR technology, we were also inhereting their space program.
“I wanted to get you off Sera, to encounter what that could mean for the rest of the solar system. Not that you’d be hopping – it was old Russian Sputnik type of tech, we weren’t going to Mass Effect this, but it would get you to a new setting and raise the stakes.
“I left that for them, like ‘Okay here’s what I think we should do for Gears 6, good luck have fun’, but then they threw that all away and did something completely cool with the prologue which is looking really cool and amazing.”
Fergusson also notes that there were discussions as to why the team didn’t touch on E-Day back in the Xbox 360 era, but felt the scale was a little too large for the hardware at the time. He also mentioned the tricky part about prequels set during E-day, notably that Lancers aren’t a thing during that time period, and how much of a draw they are for Gears fans.
What do you think of this? Do you think the ideas Fergusson alluded to here will ever see the light of day? Or will the stars stay forever out of reach for Gears of Wars fans? Let us know below!