Following their official deep-dive on the upcoming Gears of War E-Day, the team at studio ‘The Coalition’ have been sharing new details pertaining to the impending Xbox console exclusive. Alongside new information on just how long the campaign will be, it was also confirmed that no Generative AI was used during any part of the game’s development – increasingly becoming a marketing bullet point.

Taking part in an interview with IGN, The Coalition’s creative director Matt Searcy, brand director Nicole Fawcette, and art director Aryan Hanbeck sat down to discuss various aspects of Gears of War E-Day, including changes to movement mechanics; how they are preserving Gears’ lore and plenty more.

Speaking on the campaign, Searcy confirmed that E-Day is “longer than any campaign [The Coalition has] built” sitting at around 14 hours while featuring more collectibles than any prior title – lending itself to greater replayability.

For context, most Gears of War games have landed at around the 10 hour mark for their main stories, with the primary exception being Gears 5 at 11-12 hours. Given this, 14 hours should represent a nice uptick in the amount of playable content while not dragging on for too long.

In even better news, the team confirmed that no generative AI was used during any part of Gears of War E-Day’s development, with creative director Matt Searcy stating: “We have a kickass concept art team, and our art book is going to rock.”

Given that a number of game announcements during the past week have disclosed their use of GenAI during the game-making process, it is refreshing to see The Coalition seemingly taking a hard stance against the controversial technology.

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KitGuru says: Are you excited for Gears of War E-Day? Is the use of GenAI a dealbreaker for you? What do you think of the campaign’s expected length? Let us know down below.

Following Microsoft’s recent Xbox Games Showcase, the higher-ups at the company have been talking quite a bit about their plans for the future – particularly regarding their return to console exclusives. Despite some mixed messaging, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has now claimed that they plan to make more Xbox games exclusive once “the business is healthy.”

Discourse surrounding the Xbox Games Showcase has primarily revolved around the console maker’s confirmation that Gears of War E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be exclusive to Xbox on the console side of things.

Attention was then brought to the subject matter further when Xbox CCO Matt Booty claimed that their strategy revolved around a “case by case” basis, adding that “our big multiplayer games, our big live service games are going to continue to be multiplatform.”

This of course sparked some confusion, as the aforementioned Gears of War E-Day will have a major multiplayer element to it. Meanwhile, the newly announced Spyro: A Realm Beyond and Senua are single-player affairs, yet are still coming to multiple platforms.

Speaking on all of this, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma offered her own explanation, stating via a recent interview: “I think that we are the number 2 publisher in the world, and when you do that you want your games to be everywhere. You're stronger when the world plays with you. At the same time, we're increasingly becoming more of a platform, and it's hard to find examples of platforms out there that don't have exclusive services and content.”

Sharma continued, “This is a journey for us. Our business isn't particularly healthy, as you noted, and we're starting by introducing 1 or 2 signature exclusives, and as the business is healthy, we will look to try and do more.”

Based on the wording, it seems as though Xbox is now doing a reverse on their previous “4 games” experiment, in which a small number of exclusives were ported over to PS5. As those titles sold, more ports were later announced.

Given Asha’s statement, it is safe to assume that should these two exclusives fail to make a splash on Xbox, then they might revise the strategy – and should they end up being system sellers, then we can expect more Xbox exclusives.

Regardless, it seems like Xbox’s new strategy is still in its early days, and so we will have to wait and see what becomes of it.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Sharma’s statement? Did this offer any additional clarity? Do you think Microsoft will go back fully to exclusives? Let us know down below.

One of the biggest talking points surrounding Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase was the fact that the publisher would be returning to console exclusives – sort of. While Gears of War E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are now set to be limited to the Xbox Series X/S (on consoles at least), the former was seemingly initially planned to also arrive on PlayStation 5. Additionally, insiders have claimed that Halo Campaign Evolved was initially going to be featured at Sony’s State of Play…until Microsoft changed their minds.

In the immediacy following Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase, it was discovered that Gears of War E-Day appeared to have been initially planned to be a multi-platform release, with a (now delisted) Xbox Podcast video featuring the PlayStation 5 logo at the end of the trailer.

Adding to this, according to known insider Chris Dring (and seeming partially corroborated by other known-insider Tom Warren) Microsoft had originally planned to show off Halo Campaign Evolved during PlayStation’s recent State of Play – though later “decided against it, which has angered Sony.”

As mentioned by Dring, the Halo reports are simply “gossip” and so should be taken with a pinch of salt. That said, there is no denying that there appears to be some weirdness going on at Xbox currently. Hopefully a clearer plan is made evident as time goes on.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Xbox going back partially to exclusives? Is there any rhyme or reason for the titles selected? Let us know your thoughts down below.

Just a few hours ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, insider Jeff Grubb revealed during a Giant Bomb stream that The Coalition's Gears of War: E-Day was supposed to launch on PlayStation 5 but won't anymore. I'll say it here. Gears of War: E-Day was going to be on PS5; it's not anymore. That just happened. Like, it's a decision that just got made. And it's like, they're going backwards on this stuff where they were like, this battle doesn't make any sense. Indeed, Microsoft had chosen to go fully multiplatform with many of its games. Gears of War: […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/gears-of-war-e-day-xbox-exclusive-ps5/

June is coming up, which means we are due for a ton of game reveals and release date announcements from major publishers across the industry. Thanks to ratings board leaks, we know of at least four titles due to get major announcements in the coming weeks. 

Earlier this month we learned that The Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea had updated its listing for Fable, indicating that Xbox will finally announce the game's release date during its showcase next month. Now, the same ratings board has updated listings for several other titles.

For starters, it looks like Paradox Interactive has teamed up with Lego for a new version of Cities Skylines, titled Lego Skylines. Persona 4 Revival has also been listed, which means Sega will finally show off more of the game, following the short 30-second teaser last year.

As spotted by Gematsu, the likes of Ace Combat 8, Gears of War E-Day and even Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy also appear. However, we already knew that Gears of War E-Day would be a major highlight of the next Xbox showcase. In the case of Guardians of the Galaxy, we are likely looking at a new Switch 2 port of the game.

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KitGuru Says: Persona 3 Reload was great so I have high hopes for Persona 4 Revival. Lego Skylines should be very interesting to see as well – the Lego aesthetic will work very well for a city-builder. 

We already know that Gears of War E-Day is set to be a big part of Xbox's summer showcase plans. Now, a different marketing deal between Xbox and the WWE may have revealed the game's planned release date ahead of the announcement in June. 

As spotted by GamesRadar, WWE subsidiary, Lucha Libre, recently began advertising its WWE Triplemania 34 event, due to take place in September. The announcement revealed that Gears of War E-Day will be one of the main sponsors for the event.

With the event taking place between the 11th and 13th of September, it is now expected that the new Gears game will become available around the same time, well ahead of the launch of GTA 6, which is expected to eat up the majority of games sales in November.

If all goes to plan this year, Xbox will have a hugely busy Summer and Q3 period, with Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears E-Day and Fable all expected to release within a short timespan.

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KitGuru Says: As much as I've enjoyed the newer Gears of War games, a return to the Marcus Fenix era in Gears E-Day is far more exciting to me than a Gears 6 at this point. 

Cliff Bleszinski, the American game designer known primarily for his work on the Gears and Unreal franchises at Epic, shared his positive outlook on the upcoming prequel, Gears of War: E-Day. In a video interview with The Expansion Pass, the game developer highlights that The Coalition has made the right choice in focusing on making the Locust scary again, rather than presenting enemies like the DeeBees robots. Bleszinski added that he has high hopes for this game, which looks like a return to the original trilogy's dark tone that was a bit lost in Gears 4 and 5, and he […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/gears-of-war-e-day-bleszinski-righting-ship-robots/

The Gears of War series remains as one of the big 3 Xbox franchises in many people’s eyes (alongside Halo and Forza), with the long-awaited Gears of War: E-Day set to be its big return following roughly half-a-decade of absence. Ahead of the game’s big blowout event scheduled for this June, Xbox’s CCO Matt Booty has offered some slight teasers on what to expect from the upcoming presentation.

Right at the tail-end of last month, Microsoft officially unveiled their plans for this Summer, confirming that they will be hosting an Xbox Games Showcase on the 7th of June – followed immediately by a dedicated Gears of War: E-Day Direct. At the time, this was all that was shared.

Taking to the official Xbox podcast however, Chief Content Officer Matt Booty offered some new and ancillary details regarding what to expect from the E-Day segment, stating:

“I’ll say that we’ve got the Gears Direct coming, and after seeing that, we’ve probably got like a full 30 minutes, which is really great. And I don’t know. I just love everybody in that studio, the work they’re doing. I’m excited about the game, and we’re going to have a fantastic, full 30 minutes of stuff to see.”

While not the most concise of revelations, it is interesting to learn that we will be getting a full 30 minutes of Gears of War: E-Day footage – especially as all we have seen so far has been a brief cinematic teaser from back in 2024.

Though far from being in its peak popularity-wise, Gears of War remains one of Xbox’s most iconic franchises, and so it will be interesting to see what The Coalition have in store for fans.

KitGuru says: Are you looking forward to Gears of War: E-Day? How different do you expect it to be compared to previous entries? Is Gears still one of Xbox’s big 3? Let us know your thoughts down below.