After the seven-year gap between Gears 5 and Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition says its next game will take considerably less time to make. Studio head Mike Crump told the BBC that the next installment “will not take nearly as long.” The wait for E-Day was the longest hiatus the series had seen.
Gears 5 arrived in 2019, while E-Day launched on October 6, 2026. By comparison, three years separated Gears 4 and Gears 5, and the original trilogy released within a five-year span.
E-Day returns to the Locust invasion’s first days, making it a prequel rather than a continuation of Gears 5‘s cliffhanger. Crump described the game as a foundation for the franchise’s future. The Coalition built it largely from scratch instead of on top of earlier Gears games, giving the studio a base for later entries.
Crump also said the studio wanted E-Day to showcase Xbox by pushing the hardware and demonstrating what the platform could do.
His comments came as Coalition employees had raised concerns about post-launch layoffs and performance-bonus eligibility. Crump urged the team to focus on what it could control, including delivering a game players would enjoy, rather than decisions outside its reach. He also pointed to more than 20 years of collaboration among the studio’s leadership team as a source of continuity and experience.
Crump did not give a release window for the follow-up. His comments signal a shorter development cycle, not a date for the next Gears game.
What would you most want The Coalition to build on from E-Day in its next Gears game? For more on the studio’s plans for the series and its Xbox work, stay connected through X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
