Gears 6 Could Have Been Set on a Different Planet, Former Series Boss Reveals

gamingbolt.com:

The next Gears game, Gears of War: E-Day, is being billed as the series’ next mainline entry, but it’s going to be a prequel set before the original Gears of War, rather than following up on Gears 5 as the series’ next numbered entry. Interestingly enough, however, as revealed by former franchise boss Rod Fergusson, if things had gone differently, the next Gears game would be a lot different. 

Speaking recently during IGN’s Unlocked podcast, Fergusson – who has been the Diablo boss at Blizzard Entertainment since his departure from The Coalition in 2020 – revealed that while he was still in charge of the series at the studio, the rough outline that he had put in place for Gears 6 was for the series to head to a new planet rather than continuing to be set on Sera. 

“Gears 6 was to leave Sera,” he said (transcription via GamesRadar). “That was something we were building to. If you paid attention to the story in Gears 5, you come across the UIR [Union of Independent Republics] sort-of rocket technology. We were sort of laying the seeds and the groundwork that in taking over that UIR territory, we’ve adopted their space program. So what I wanted to do with Gears 6 is take you off Sera to encounter what that could mean to the rest of the galaxy or, at least, the rest of the solar system. Not that you’d be hopping [between planets], but… it was old, Russian-era, sputnik-type tech, so we weren’t going to start Mass Effect-ing this. It was really about, ‘let’s get you to a new place to encounter what this looks like.'”

Of course, with the next Gears game set to be a prequel, it remains to be seen whether that’s still what The Coalition intends to do with the franchise with its next numbered entry- though clearly, we’re going to have to wait quite a while to find out.

Gears of War: E-Day is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. A release date hasn’t been announced, but reports have claimed the game is targeting a 2025 launch.