The Gears of War team had to wait for technology to catch up to their destructive, large-scale ideas before depicting the “massive invasion” that plagues the upcoming prequel Gears of War: E-Day, according to the series’ former lead.
Rod Fergusson, who led production on every single mainline Gears game before moving on to become the general manager of all things Diablo, has given his two cents on Gears of War: E-Day, the tenth game in the series and the first one without his participation.
“It’s really interesting,” Fergusson says in an interview with GamesRadar+ during Summer Game Fest. “I was thinking about it as I was getting ready to watch the show, like, E-Day is the tenth Gears of War game, and I’ve had creative involvement in all the previous nine, so this is the first one I haven’t had anything to do with at all.”
Making Gears of War: E-Day has a been long-gestating idea for Fergusson, however, as “E-Day was one of the things we used to talk about when we were doing Gears 1-5.” The prequel goes back in time to 14 years before the first game, depicting the moment when the subterranean hordes finally invaded the planet of Sera and kickstarted the war we see during Epic Games‘ trilogy, and since it’s such a pivotal moment in the timeline, fans would often ask Fergusson about a potential prequel.
Why did it take almost two decades for the game to get made, then? “Part of it was, at the time, we didn’t feel like the technology could really render E-Day, right?” Fergusson explains. “Because this is a massive invasion, you know, where millions and millions, tens of millions of people get killed… and so we were just like, we can’t do it justice on the [Xbox 360].”
Gears of War: E-Day’s reveal trailer gives us a small glimpse of the cataclysmic event, with a younger Marcus Fenix and a still-breathing Dom Santiago staring down the city of Kalona, now burning and under siege. It’s an impressively grand, disastrous sight, and since it was made using in-game assets, it should at least give us a taste of the chaos still to come. “Now, looking at what The Coalition does with Unreal Engine 5 and what they’re able to do with the Xbox Series X – this is the perfect time to have an E-Day story,” Fergusson adds.
While the series is finally going back to a pivotal moment many fans have been waiting to see, Fergusson can’t help but mull over another crucial event – the cliffhanger ending in Gears 5 that’s been benched. “I thought I had really great ideas for what Gears 6 was going to be and how to continue that or finish that trilogy. I’m kind of wanting to see how they were going to finish it,” Fergusson says, and for anyone who’s also missing Kait Diaz and the gang, developer The Coalition has said it still has eyes on Gears 6.
“I’m really excited to see what they do,” Fergusson adds. “I’m really proud of them.”
Elsewhere, Fergusson explained that Diablo Immortal gave the Diablo 4 team the confidence to build a new class that isn’t a “classic archetype of the D&D world.”