The Coalition has some good news for players who felt that Gears of War 4 played things too safe. The company has confirmed that development on Gears 5 is taking more risks than its predecessor.
Speaking to Kotaku, studio head Rod Fergusson confirmed that the developers are taking player feedback into account and playing things less safe with Gears 5. As part of the interview, he confirmed that they didn’t want to mess with the Gears of War formula with the fourth game because the team was new to the series.
The Coalition took over from Gears of War creators Epic Games for the fourth game. Only three people in the current team, including Fergusson, had experience working on prior Gears of War games. As such, the developers felt like they had to stick close to what the previous team at Epic had done.
“We really went out going, ‘Okay, we’re going to stay true to what Gears is, and [not] mess with it too much,’” he told Kotaku. “We really didn’t want people going, ‘Well they don’t know what they’re doing.’”
While their hearts may have been in the right place, it seems most players wanted something that pushed the envelope a bit more. “What we got instead was like, ‘There’s not enough innovation here,’” Fergusson continues. “We sort of took that feedback about, ‘We trust you, please go push it.’ And so we really brought that to Gears 5.”
Gears 5 already shows one big departure from previous games: The new release will feature Kait Diaz as the series’ first female lead character. Prior to this, she played a supporting role to Marcus Fenix’s son J.D. in Gears of War 4. Other changes Fergusson hinted at include tweaks to melee combat, including a change to how the series trademark chainsaw attack is triggered (now using the right bumper). He also mentioned a greater focus on shooting at weak points and scoring head shots.
Gears 5 arrives on Xbox One on September 10, 2019.
