There was a time when hearing the engine of a chainsaw in a trailer was enough to shake the video game sphere. Let’s go back up time until November 2006. Gears of War tumbles on Xbox 360 like a bulldozer, puts its big dirty boots on the action game old school And alone redefines the third -person shooter codes. A true metaphor for a conquering Microsoft, the Gears of War designed by Epic Games arrived to dominate, impose its law and scare competition. Gears, it was the standard of a raging Xbox 360, as comfortable in demonstrating its technical power as in the remodeling of gameplay mechanics.
With its dark corridors, its guys as wide as American fridges and its cover system that has become an industrial standard, Gears was not only a game. It was a declaration of war. Under the leadership of Epic Games and the Unreal Engine 3 engine, Gears Displayed graphics never seen for the time: high -resolution textures (between gray and brown, will say sorrowful minds), dynamic light effects and facial animations that put competition on knees. So compare them cutscenes first Gears of War To those of Twilight Princess, Oblivion or Final Fantasy XII, all released the same year, and you will understand the slap taken by the public at the time (only Metal Gear Solid 3 seemed to hold out). In a few months, Gears of War Enhanced in more than 3 million copies, becoming the most sold Xbox 360 exclusivity in 2006. To date, the game has sold more than 6 million units.
At the time, Xbox hit the bull’s eye and gained market share at high speed because the firm was hit hard and just: Halo, Forzaand therefore Gears. The triptych that gave Microsoft legitimacy in video games difficult to challenge. E3 2006, where the live demo of Gears Returns the room, remains in the memories as one of the moments when Xbox stole the show.
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Use your gears material
Beyond the figures, it is the influence that impresses. The coverage system popularized by Gears Immediately became a standard, taken up at The Division, Vanquish, Splinter Cell Conviction … FPS, hitherto dominated by a permanent mobility requirement, begin to integrate more tactical mechanics (we think of Killzone 2 or Deus Ex: Human Revolution with its mechanics of change of point of view FPS/TPS on the cover). Even if Gears of War did not create this system, since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty already had a mechanics of this type, it is the game of Epic Games which is considered to be the parent of the sub-genre cover shooter. But let’s not forget to mention Kill Switch, Namco game released in 2003, that Cliff “Cliffy B” Bleszinski, director of Gears of Warquoted as an important influence for his game, going so far as to say during the 2007 GDC that “It was the best cover system at the time”.
Beyond the gameplay, the story of Gears of War touched something primitive. In this devastated world that was, humanity was fighting against the locustes, creatures of the bowels of the earth with a lot of bullets that make, chainsaw in the face and crossed crosses of the jaw. From a SF frame worthy of an uninhibited B series, Gears of War managed to inject a surprising emotional load. Bathed in a desperate, almost fatalistic tone, Gears of War Played between the fun of the monster massacre, the permanent emergency of the front race imposed by the scenario, and its visual brutality assumed, for an emotionally very busy result. Marcus Fenix, this gruff hero, dragged his scars as physical and moral. Gears of War was a war where there was no glorious triumph, just harsh and bloody survival. A stale, heavy, contrasting atmosphere with the smooth heroes of other franchises.
Even in terms of marketing, Microsoft wanted to do things differently, for example by betting on the famous trailer “Mad World”. Peter Kingsley, head of the Xbox product marketing team in 2006, said in an interview with The Guardian: « We knew that to become a real seller of platforms, which was the reason why we invested in Gears of War on the scale at which we did, we had to highlight the beauty and richness of the universe, of history as well as the fights. We have chosen to do things differently and break with the conventional marketing model which was the norm at the time. »
In 2008, Gears of War 2 transformed the test and flowed to more than 5 million copies on May 7, 2009. Then in 2011, Gears of War 3 came to close the trilogy developed by Epic Games with a smashing launch of 3 million sales the first week (yes, there was a time when Microsoft also was expressed in number of copies sold), allowing the franchise to cross the bar billion dollars in income. Gears of War Judgment, the spin-off Developed by People Can Fly in 2013, a clear slowdown, on the other hand and is credited with a million takers. In 2016, when Microsoft had announced two years earlier to acquire the franchise that still belonged to Epic Games so far, Gears of War 4 will score a rocking point on several points. Change of developers, with The Coalition taking over from Epic Games, passage from the Unreal Engine 3 – and 3.5 – to the Unreal Engine 4, and change of support, going from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One. Change of generation of heroes too, the story taking place 25 years later.
-And therefore, the domination of Gears of War is slowly cracking. The formula, formerly innovative, begins to feel the warmer by dint of intensive recycling of the same clichés. Meanwhile, Sony aligns exclusives punch: The last of Us, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4. The technical and creative audacity of Gears of War gradually migrated to competition. Gears of War 4 And Gears 5 (released in 2019) are technically solid, but cannot recreate the 2006 earthquake. Despite overall positive criticism, the cultural impact of these two titles is low. Microsoft ceases to communicate on commercial performance, and its titles mostly become arguments for the Game Pass more than technological windows or homes of gameplay innovations.
While Sony balances his reboot of God of War (same initials, funny coincidence) in 2018. Nintendo, for its part, redefines the open world with Breath of the Wild. Gears of War, once the Bulldozer of Xbox, is no longer scary. Difficult not to see there an evolution of Microsoft’s philosophy, passing from mastodonte to head down in the video game pack, to thoughtful failure player, posing his pawns as so many incentives to subscribe to his subscription service.
Top Gears
And here is by waiting for Gears of War: e-day, which will be a prequel to the first game, Microsoft announced that Gears of War : Reloaded will arrive on PC, Xbox Series and PlayStation 5. In terms ofE-Day, Matt Searcy, the creative director of The Coalition, said it himself at Xbox Wire, he wants to return to the essence of the saga: “We realized that many of the words we use to describe the franchise are also those that our fans use: fraternity, brutality, pathos, fear. Why E-Day? This is the moment when it all converges. »»
It is therefore all the more clever as to launch a remaster of Gears of War upstream of E-Day. The Mission of the Remaster will be to remind players (old and new) why this series counted at the time, multiplayer included. He will come to vibrate again the nostalgic rope, so that E-Day Arrives like a logical sequence and especially not just yet another iteration. What could be better than awakening old memories to better sell a new start? Let us add that delivering this remaster on PS5 is also a devilishly intelligent defensive strategy. Xbox no longer seeks to dominate by exclusivity, but to maximize the exposure of its cultural products. To bring Gears On PlayStation, it is to inject the series into an ecosystem where many have never touched it, thus expanding the potential base of fans just before launching E-Day. The goal is clear, it involves maximizing sales capacity. And the boxes of Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 on the Sony ecosystem have shown that yes, PlayStation players are ready to massively subscribe to the Xbox Game Studios proposals.
Finally, let us remember the obvious: a remaster is less risky than a new game. Gears of War : ReloadedMicrosoft can gauge the request: how many players are still ready to come back? How many new curious people will bite the hook? If the remaster is a hit, it will validate the massive investment that the Redmond firm has put in E-Day. If it flops, just adjust the marketing campaign accordingly.
So yes, Gears of War comes back. But, personally, I fear that the thrill, in 2006. At the time, a simple chainsaw was enough to impose respect. In 2025, this noise will make me smile with nostalgia, but never trembles again like it had been the case almost 20 years ago. Gears of War : Reloaded Will not be a new demonstration of force, but a call for a new audience. He is no longer the predator of yesteryear, but the vestige of an era when, really, Xbox was scary.
Gears of War : Reloaded will be released on August 26, 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series, it will be available as soon as it is released in the Game Pass and offered to Xbox players who have the digital version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.
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