Earlier today on February 23, Spanish-based Twitter account Xbox Studio (opens in new tab) claimed to have received comment from Xbox general manager Aaron Greenberg stating that there were multiple unannounced games in the works from Gears of War developer The Coalition. Speaking to GamesRadar+ however, Greenberg shot down the claims as entirely false, revealing that he never spoke to the Twitter account in the first place.

The Coalition is the developer behind Gears of War 4, and more recently, Gears 5. Right now, there’s no concrete information surrounding current projects the developer has on the go, but now we at least know the claim that they’re developing multiple unannounced projects is entirely without merit.

The Coalition’s last game would be Gears 5, which released back in September 2019. The last we heard from the studio itself was a rebuttal of a rumored Star Wars game in May 2021, as well as revealing that it’d shifted entirely to “next-gen development,” but that we shouldn’t expect any new games from the studio “for some time.”

Aside from that, a leaker claimed late last year that Gears 6 is in development at The Coalition, and eyeing a launch between 2024 and 2025, while another claimed that the studio is developing a brand new IP. For now though, we’ll have to wait a while longer to see what the studio actually is developing.

Check out our upcoming Xbox Series X games guide for a complete look over what the future holds for the new-gen console.

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Last week, Gears 5 released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S update, which relaunched the game with next-gen optimization. Now, The Coalition is relaunching the multiplayer with the largest-post launch update ever. 

Operation 5: Hollow Storm is the largest operation to date, adding seven characters, five maps and 13 new achievements, as well as one returning weapon, the Scorcher. The new maps include:

• Nexus, where players will fight amongst rivers of Imulsion in a Locust stronghold deep under Mount Kadar. 
• Regency, a towering arena set high above the clouds
• Classic Maps: 3 favourites from the original Gears of War trilogy that are making a return. Gridlock and Clocktower included, as well as River, from Gears of War 2.

Seven characters joining the Multiplayer roster are callbacks to the Locust War, including Dizzy Wallin and Tai Kaliso who face off against the Locust Skorge from Gears of War 2, and Anya Stroud takes on Lambent Drone, Lambent Grenadier, and Lambent Theron Guard from Gears of War 3.

The new Operation will also add significant multiplayer and quality of life updates, including the separation of characters and classes so you’ll be able to play how you want. Versus multiplayer is now fully optimized for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, featuring a locked 120fps on both consoles. 

Additional feature updates include:

• A suite of Ranked PvP updates to improve the overall player experience
• PvE balanace updates for decoupled classes
• New Heroic cosmetic rarity to reward the most dedicated players
• All-new daily and weekly PvE challenges and rewards

Additionally, a Gabe Diaz character skin is now available in Operation 5. Players who complete the Gears Tactics tutorial will automatically unlock him when they log into Gears 5. 

To check out geared-up Gears 5 for yourself, here’s how to buy an Xbox Series X.

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Tuesday’s server-side update was intended to rework the XP system to make it easier for players to work through totem challenges, which players complete to unlock new characters. The Coalition said these totems were designed to take about 10 in-game hours to complete, but they crunched some numbers and found that the average player was taking longer than that, though they didn’t specify how long.

Before the changes were made, The Coalition said (opens in new tab) the discrepancy was due to “an inconsistency between MPXP rates in Versus and lower difficulty levels of Horde/Escape on Elite or lower – which accounts for the vast majority of our player base – and higher difficulty PvE play.” 

In an effort to balance that, The Coalition tried to increase base XP across the board while also removing the difficulty multiplier in Horde and Escape modes. This led to fan backlash, though, as higher difficulty PvE players didn’t like being inadvertently punished, so just two days after the changes, they’ve been reverted. The Coalition now says it’ll go back to tweaking things in an effort to “restore difficulty multipliers while also ensuring we’re awarding more XP for lower levels than we did before Tuesday’s change.” 

The studio says it’s actively re-tuning things now and hopes to have new changes to share as soon as this week. In the meantime, if you need more XP in Gears 5, you can log in once per day from Friday til Sunday to be gifted an XP bonus.

Gears 5 has been in Xbox Game Pass since launch, like all Xbox Game Studios titles. Here’s a look at what else is new to Game Pass (opens in new tab).

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HEY GEARS HAS FUCKING PRIDE FLAGS IN GAME WHAT pic.twitter.com/vRhDSm3XzySeptember 5, 2019

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Seems like The Coalition is working hard to make the fifth installment in the main Gears franchise more inclusive and welcoming to people who don’t identify as rectangle-shaped muscle men with gravelly voices and a penchant for skull caps. That’s probably why the game focuses on a female character (Kait Diaz) for the first time ever. 

With that in mind, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there will be 19 pride flags available as multiplayer banners, including (but not limited to), intersex, bisexual, polysexual, and nonbinary. They’re listed simply as numbered “pride banners” and are not trapped behind a paywall, but can be crafted for free in-game (another smart move by The Coalition). 

Gears 5 is dropping for PC and Xbox One on September 10, but is available for download as soon as tomorrow, September 6, for Xbox Live Game Pass Ultimate members. Dropping alongside the inclusive pride flags will be a brand new co-op multiplayer mode called Escape, a revamped Horde mode, and levels that are exponentially larger than they’ve ever been before (opens in new tab).

For all things Gears-related, check out our On The Radar: Gears 5 – A deep dive into the most ambitious Gears of War game ever created (opens in new tab).  

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A new trailer for Gears 5 was shown off at Xbox’s E3 show alongside the release date announcement, and it’s a doozy. Playing to Billy Eilish’s morbidly appropriate single ‘Bury a Friend’, it focuses on Kait’s split allegiances and the pressure she’ll come under as a result. A haunting minute or so of footage sees her struggling to cope with the ghosts of her past, her allies, and what appears to be a terrifying madness that threatens to get the best of her. Things become steadily eerier from there as an infection creeps up her neck and she cradles her mother’s Locust medallion. By the time those dark veins reach her eyes, an image of the Locust Queen from the original Gears of War trilogy is overlayed across her face. The implication is clear – Kait’s in a battle for her soul. This also leaves the door open for a return from the Locust Queen, if only in spirit (she was killed by Marcus at the end of Gears of 3, so a physical comeback would be… challenging). Life still sucks in the world of Sera, it seems.

That hasn’t stopped a storm of new content set in the Gears universe, though. First up is a gory trailer for ‘Escape’, presumably a new mode hitting Gears 5 (seen above). Then we’ve got the Terminator: Dark Fate character pack, available to those who pre-order or Xbox Game Pass users. This allows you to become the T-100, because why not?

 For more coverage of E3 2019 (opens in new tab), be sure to check out our overview. 

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Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s planned arrival on PC (opens in new tab) was an early announcement in this spirit, Spencer noted on Xbox Wire (opens in new tab). Xbox will keep bringing more games to PC via Steam, though Spencer didn’t make any big announcements about all first-party Xbox games coming to Steam.

“We will continue to add to the more than 20 Xbox Game Studios titles on Steam, starting with Gears 5 and all Age of Empires I, II & III: Definitive Editions,” Spencer said. “We know millions of PC gamers trust Steam as a great source to buy PC games and we’ve heard the feedback that PC gamers would like choice.  We also know that there are other stores on PC, and we are working to enable more choice in which store you can find our Xbox Game Studios titles in the future.”

If anybody prefers to buy their games on the Microsoft Store, well, you can keep right on truckin’. With the prerequisite ragging on the Microsoft Store attended to, I’ve got to admit that the built-in digital storefront for Windows 10 will be a much more tempting home for gaming with Xbox Game Pass for PC. It will be a separate collection from its Xbox One counterpart, giving subscribers access to more than 100 games from publishers like Bethesda, Devolver Digital, and others. All new Xbox Game Studios games will launch on it day-one, and you’ll get discounts on games and their DLC in the Microsoft Store if you want to buy them for keeps.

One last technical note: Microsoft is enabling the sale of Win32 apps on the Microsoft Store, which is an older software architecture that’s still common for making games. This means many more games will be able to go up for sale on the Microsoft Store soon. Spencer says you can look forward to more PC-related announcements when Xbox takes the stage at E3.

Check out our E3 2019 schedule (opens in new tab) to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the news from Microsoft and beyond. Then watch our latest Release Radar video to see what’s big in games and entertainment this week.

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