Gears of War prequel E-Day revealed at Xbox Game Showcase

Xbox saved “one more thing” at the end of its summer game showcase: A new Gears of War game set before the events of the main series, called Gears of War: E-Day. The cinematic trailer showed young Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago fighting off Locusts on Emergence Day, the cataclysmic event that led to the rest of the events of the Gears of War series. The trailer didn’t reveal many details about the game, and we didn’t get a release date, but it had a hint of nostalgia with an instrumental version of the original game’s famous “Mad World” trailer song.

Xbox revealed more details after the trailer reveal in an Xbox Wire post. According to developers The Coalition, it’s recreating the familiar third-person cover-based shooting of the series, but with next-gen tech adding new features to it. Creative director Matt Searcy told Xbox Wire, “It’s going to feel like a new Gears game, because that’s what it is… It’s going to be awesome, a game that feels both truly new, and authentically Gears.”

According to the developers, the prequel tells the story of Emergence Day on Sera, with Marcus and Dom fighting off the heretofore-unknown Locusts and forging their strong friendship. The new game is built in Unreal Engine 5, and the world of Gears has been recreated in the new engine. This includes the iconic Lancer — and the developers implied that E-Day will also show the origins of the Chainsaw Lancer. The new game has no release date at present,