Diablo 4 director's plan for Gears Of War 6 was to blast the beefcakes to another planet
Bringing the curbstomp to Mercury
While we're getting a Gears Of War prequel in Gears Of War: E-Day, this does mean that Gears Of War 6 is yet to be a thing. In a recent episode of IGN's Podcast Unlocked, former Gears Of War director and current Diablo 4 lead Rod Fergusson revealed what his plans were for Gears 6 when he left. In short, he was going to take the game to space. Righto.
When asked for his thoughts on Gears Of War going down the prequel route, Fergusson said that it was ultimately a "really smart" decision, despite not being in line with his original plans for Gears 6. He was then, of course, asked what those plans were.
"I was just getting us off Sera, so Gears 6 was to leave Sera," Fergusson said - Sera being the planet that Gears is set in, all Locusted up and very much in a bad spot. Following up on this, he talked about how the story would be centred around the Union of Independent Republics rocket technology glimpsed in Gears 5.
"We were sort of laying the seeds and the groundwork that in taking over that UIR territory, we've adopted their space program," Fergusson said. "So what I wanted to do with Gears 6 is take you off Sera to encounter what that could mean to the rest of the galaxy or, at least, the rest of the solar system. Not that you'd be hopping [between planets], but... it was old, Russian-era, sputnik-type tech, so we weren't going to start Mass Effect-ing this. It was really about, 'let's get you to a new place to encounter what this looks like.'"
While I do think the Gears story needs a shake up, I don't know if the above "we're shipping off elsewhere" approach would have tied things together well. If anything needs changing about Gears it's surely the characters. I wish the series would drop the dull JD Fenix and co, and give us a more interesting roster without leaving Sera. Maybe they're not even COGs. Maybe we lean heavily into the survival horror that the original did so well? There's so much more to mine in Sera, I think, before you start introducing aliens.