TheGears of Warseries takes place in a detailed worldwith a lot of history. Individually, the games have fairly straightforward plots. Each one involves the rise of a major threat to humanity and usually follows a small group of characters over the course of a military operation. Collectively, however, they form a complex story about humanity’s inability to escape its own warmongering nature; often drawing deliberate parallels to real-life military history mixed with an aesthetic somewhere between military and post-apocalyptic science fiction. Throughout the series,humanity is on the verge of being destroyedironically by problems of its own creation, caused by a lengthy history of wars causing other wars. Ultimately war is a cycle doomed to repeat itself, and the best any human can hope to do is get through it in one piece.
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With five main games and three spin-offs, the series has done a lot to build an engaging if unsettling environment. But while the five main games have done an excellent job when it comes to fighting the locust horde (and later swarm), there is room to tell other stories about the planet’s destructive history. Aspin-off to the games could explore other events,whether it is offering new perspectives on things that happened in-game or things that have only been talked about. These are all moments that could make for a very interesting experience.
6E-Day
The story ofGears of Warincludes several key events, one of which gets brought up a lot but has been shown very little. Fans of the games know the Locust War officially started with Emergence Day, also known as “E-day.” This wasthe day the locusts emerged from underground and began a campaign of genocide against the human race. The incident is talked about throughout the games, but surprisingly only seen once. During one of Hoffman’s flashbacks at the start ofGears of War 4, players get a glimpse into the chaos of Emergence Day, but there is only so much that can be covered in a tutorial. Beyond that, the closest we’ve gotten wasJudgement, which deals with the aftermath.
Gears of War 3had a campaign that happened over one day. A game about E-day could follow a similar format, beginning in the morning and ending at night. It would have to drop any pretext that the player can actually win. At most, maybe they accomplish a small victory that helps prevent humanity from being completely annihilated. The focus would probably have to be more on surviving the locusts, rather than defeating them. The locust forces would be so overwhelming the player would have to evaluate each situation to determine if they actually had a chance of engaging, and stealth mechanics may need to be added as an alternative. This could put some interesting twists on the standard gameplay.
5The Height Of The Locust War
The Locusts are a central part ofGears of War’s story, with the original games focused on the ongoing war between them and the humans. However, players really only got to see the beginning and end of the conflict.Judgementtakes place right at the start, while1-3take place over its final years. That still leaves afull fifteen years between the events ofJudgementand the originalGears of War, including the four years Marcus spent in prison.
Such a gap would leave a lot of creative freedom for the developers, and it would even be an opportunity to revisit some old friends. A prequel focused on the locust war could be a chance to get reaquainted with someof the characters who died in the original trilogylike Kim, Tai, and of course Dom. They could also reintroduce some supporting characters, like maybe having an appearance by a younger Bernie.
4The Locusts' Beginning
Gears of Warhas typically followed human characters with the locusts acting as the antagonists, but the series has not exactly gone out of its way to give the COG a moral high ground. In fact, if anything,they often like to show the COG being just as hateful and warmongering as the locusts they fight. It might therefore be interesting to flip perspective and do a game that shows the locust perspective. It would not even be much of a leap given the locusts themselves originated from mutated humans. That just leaves the obvious question of what kind of locust-centered story could be told, well how about one that has been brought up throughout the series?
One approach for a locust-centered game could be focusing on their origins, something first hinted at inGears of War 2but more clearly established in5. They could open with the experiments conducted at the Mount Kadar laboratory seen in both games, and the eventual rebellion by proto-locusts before they moved underground. Then there’s the story of what happened up to e-day, which would mean bringing back an old enemy - the lambent. This would also be an opportunity to revisit and perhaps better develop the motivations of some of the original games' antagonists, particularly general RAAM and Skorge.
3Operation: Hollow Storm
The events of Operation Hollow Storm made up most of the plot ofGears of War 2. It was an intense campaign that saw a full-on assault of the locusts, included a giant worm that could only be killed from the inside out, and culminating in the COG ironically destroying the one place that was actually somewhat locust-proof. Heavy casualties were sustained, and the battle would have some pretty serious ramifications. The thing is, players only got to see a small (although crucial) part of it in-game. More specifically it was the parts where Marcus Fenix was present. But Operation Hollow Storm was a coordinated assault conducted by a massive army. That does leave room for revisiting the battle from a new perspective.
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Obviously, a game set during the events ofGears of War 2wouldn’t be focused on the main cast. They could perhaps have a voiceover cameo by Marcus during a radio conversation, or an appearance by supporting cast members like Hoffman or Dizzy. There could even be a role for some characters not given much focus in2like Jace or Bernie. But it should mostly be an original group of characters. This would be a story about the various background gears seen throughout the game, and depending on how the story played out it could explore some of the fallout, like for instance offering more detail about the immediate consequences of Jacinto’s sinking.
2The Pendulum Wars
EveryGears of Warfan knows of the Pendulum Wars. Theinfamous 79-year conflictcould be best described as being like the Cold War on steroids, and its legacy continues during the events of the games. One of the most obvious contributions of the Pendulum Wars was the Hammer of Dawn, a weapon of mass destruction used several times across the entireGears of Warseries. InGears 5, it is also revealed that the Pendulum wars were directly responsible for the even bigger disaster that was the Locust War. Several major characters were veterans of the conflict, including Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and Colonel Hoffman. But really, the only time they have actually been shown was one flashback inGears of War 4.
A game set in the Pendulum Wars would be a chance to explore a crucial part of the series' lore. It would have to break the usual format of humans fighting locusts, but that might not be a bad thing. If the developers were feeling really ambitious, they could add a level of moral ambiguity by having the player control characters onbothsides, perhaps alternating at various points between a COG and GUI protagonist. This would be different, but it would almost certainly fit the games' core theme of war as an endless cycle caused by human nature.
1Sera’s Early History
Gears of Wartakes place on a fictional planet called “Sera” (Ares spelled backward), which acts as an allegory for Earth. Since the games take place in a world inspired by but ultimately separate from our own, it has its own complex history. However, not a lot of detail has been given on anything before the Pendulum Wars. Most of the information that has been given is pretty general, and doesn’t leave a lot of insight into any specific people or events. There are traces of this past through the series, like a fort described by Del as being from “kings and wizards days,” but mostly the focus has been on the present. It might be interesting to try exploring some of this history, possibly hundreds or thousands of years before the main games take place.
This would leave a lot of creative options depending on what part of Sera’s history the developers wanted to look at. Most likely a game of this sort would be focused on a past war, presenting a familiar but jarringly different Sera. One approach might be to draw on major conflicts of the 18th and 19th century, maybe with a COG precursor based on some major empires of that time. Going even further, they could play with some sort of medieval or renaissance-style period which would mean changing up some of the usual gameplay by adapting it to accommodate greater melee use and more conservative applications of firearms. This would be very different from the games players are familiar with, but it definitely fit with the recurring theme of humans being unable to escape their warmongering nature.
