There is now a new rumor that we could be seeing the return of the classic Gears of War games. At the very least, the first one.
As reddit has found, a Spanish speaking game leaker named Nash Weedle has shared an image with the logo of the first Gears of War game.
For those who are somehow not old enough to remember, Gears of War was one of the key shooter franchises in the modern era of gaming. Beginning with the first Gears of War in 2006, the franchise became synonymous with the Xbox 360, though the original games were also released on Windows.
Gears of War also made its mark in the genre by popularizing the cover shooter convention. While it wasn’t the very first game to feature this mechanic (look at Winback: Cover Operations and Time Crisis for forerunners), it was a very good early implementation that satisfied console gamers who found the transition of the shooter genre from PC to console jarring.
Shooters have definitely evolved in many ways and in many directions since then, if you think about the disparities between playing Fortnite, Doom Eternal, and Call of Duty, for example. But that hasn’t taken away from how beloved the original Gears of War games have been.
Now some of you may also know this, but I hadn’t been mentioning that the original developer of the Gears of War games are the company making Fortnite now; Epic Games. Epic, of course, have themselves also moved on from the franchise, creatively as much as in a business sense.
Today’s Gears of War developer is The Coalition, and while their work is not as beloved, the consensus has been that they have taken control of the franchise completely and taken it in its own direction.
But those original Epic Games Gears of War games definitely remain hugely popular. Now, one weird thing is that Microsoft set up an Xbox Backward Compatible program, so that some of their classic games from the Xbox and Xbox 360 can be played on the Xbox One, and by extension, Xbox Series X|S.
However, the Gears of War games were also published on Windows, and Microsoft’s program could not really account for that.
So there is definitely a reason for Microsoft to produce a remake or remaster of the first Gears of War, or doing the same for all three as a collection. It’s also a good time for it too, as remakes and remasters are very much in vogue.
The Coalition last released Gears 5 in 2019 for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, so it is definitely possible they had occupied their time with such a project.
We will just have to wait and find out in the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase if this will really be a thing.
