Game has no legs online which is crucial and the campaign completion % is laughable.
That does not mean the franchise is dead though.
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Gears always has people playing online. I’ve been playing since Gears 1 and never struggle to get games. The real problem is that it doesn’t appeal to casual gamers. The people still playing Gears online are the same people who’ve always been playing it online since Gears 1.
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Personally, I think The Coalition are fantastic & know what they’re doing with the franchise. I’m not worried about future Gears games.
But I’d love to see the multi-player removed completely & made it’s own separate thing. Like “Gears Online” for example. They could have a separate team work on continually updating it. They could make it as GaaS as they wanted.
Then the main team could fully focus on making a really special single-player experience for Gears 6.
That’s just what I’d want though.
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It needs to do nothing. Again, it’s the PS fanbase on the likes of ResetEra and Neo Gaf that’s been allowed to dictate the narrative, just because of the Huge userbase Adv. The last 2 Gear games have been great.
I like to see Gears 6 build more on the spooky atmosphere of Part 4 and how the weather played a part in the game too. Gears 6 also needs to make great use of Ray Tracing too
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Yeah thats not good
Why are we blaming PS users and Era? Gears as a franchise has a problem and Id say its at a serious cross road and has nothing to do with internet posts.
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Why do you say the franchise is in trouble?.
Τhis is the difficult part though, they can cater to the casuals and the lowest common denominator by adding things from other popular games and/or dumbing down the mechanics and controls but will that bring the casual audience to Gears 6? it is a big risk that may backfire and instead of bringing more people to the series it may result in not bringing in the casuals AND also losing the loyal fanbase.
We have seen games from big series with unique strengths/qualities like Gears chasing trends and the results are almost always not good (see Dead Space 3, DmC, Ninja Gaiden 3, Resident Evil 6, Halo 4, the new Tomb Raider games, Hitman Absolution e.t.c.). All the above tried to cater to the casual audience, failed and (those who survived the downfall) then went back to basics and tried to expand on the aspects that made them unique and successful in the first place while also trying to bring back the loyal fans. Turning Gears into a low quality soap opera won’t turn heads, making meaningful changes like battles being more dynamic and unique probably will though…series like Gears have to make trends not chase them.
Also sometimes it’s fine for a game or a series to be just a moderate or decent success, not everything needs to be Fortnite or Animal Crossing and that’s OK. If developers and publishers only cared about being successful/popular in the casual audience we wouldn’t see games (and probably whole genres) like Prey, Dishonored 2, Devil May Cry 5, MS Flight Simulator, DOOM Eternal, Sekiro e.t.c. Thank God this is not the case and there are still passionate people who care about the medium and make such experiences possible in today’s gaming landscape.
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I wouldn’t call the Tomb Raider trilogy a failure at all.
Gears is such an interesting case, as it is an absurdly good-looking, well-performing game that has invented multiple new ways to get new players addicted but it hasn’t seemed to have worked.
Part of it is definitely the niche nature of the gameplay; you’re never going to permanently steal the CoD/Halo/Fortnite/Apex audience since you can’t just hold forward and shoot in Gears.
While I hope the devs at The Coalition are able to branch out and make new IP, I also hope that Gears 6 expands on the campaign even more as it might be the best bet to attract critical acclaim and new players.
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SE was not happy about latest Tomb Raider, selling below expectations.
And when asked why this might happened…
We think the main reason is that we were unable to provide an experience that was novel enough that players would choose to buy them before any of the other numerous major titles on the competitive landscape.
Back to Gears. In my opinion, the challenge is to attract people with a game with such a long backlog. Any newcomer will need to play, at least, 5 games to understand Gears 6. Visuals or gameplay changes will never attract lots of new people to the Gears franchise because of its legacy. My bet is that they are using the Hivebusters DLC to test the waters on expanding the Gears universe through more independent (self-contained) games, with more potential to attract newcomers. And so far it seems ok to core fans and critics.
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The appeal of Gears is just limited to its old fans and some people already in the xbox ecosystem. Nobody is dying to get into the franchise and I doubt a sequel changes that. So you either reboot it to something else (Pray to the heavens they dont reboot the OG story at all or do something boring like pendulum wars) or are happy with it being just a steady xbox franchise that you can pump out here and there in a down year.
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Honestly I think gears just needs a break, let the coalition do a couple other games (either new ip or if I could pick something star wars, pls phil). franchise fatigue is a real thing and gears has waned in popularity, I think the gears franchise would be better off it just tied up the current story in 6 and then have a break. After that you can do a new game thats either a new story within the same gears world as the one that has already been explored in gears 1-6 or do a soft reboot.
Everyone is super excited about Indiana Jones getting a proper AAA game, but they are only excited about it because its been a while since the last one (and the dev ofc but you get my point), I guarantee you if there had been 6 AAA Indiana Jones games in the last 20 years that people would feel meh about the one that was just announced.
Its ok for franchises to naturally lose popularity over time, if franchises were ever popular the gaming landscape would be pretty boring (I know the assassins creeds and the cods of the world are counter examples but stay with me).
As an example I love the new doom games, but I dont want 4 more of them over the next 15 years (to match the 6 gears games that will surely be made), I want id to try something new. (again maybe star wars, pls phil )
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Thats a great idea. Would give the coalition more resources to really make the single player a spectacle.
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This is the most obvious answer to why Gears has lost pull. It’s just been overdone. Halo kind of had that same problem, but it’s been 6 years and I think gamers miss the franchise more now.
Putting a franchise on hold or having a long dev time to freshen things up isn’t killing the franchise.
The counterpoint to that is COD comes out annually and has dominated the charts for the last decade. If you have a product that people love you make sure their eyes don’t divert elsewhere.
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Yep. And only 2 weapons
It’s been in the top 50 XBL games for a year and a half and was the first game to dethrone Fortnite in 2 years.
Seriously? Gears 5 launched to 4 million gamepass subscribers and was the biggest Xbox release in 7 years.
When Gears 6 comes out in 2023/2024 some 60 - 80 million people will be able to play…its most certainly going to “regain” its status. I’d laugh at anyone who doubts its longevity and popularity.
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The IP needs a break. The Coalition are so talented but people are tired of the IP. I wish they would make something new, and then come back to do Gears 6. Similar to how ND did TLOU then did Uncharted 4 after. Give the IP a much-needed break.
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Truth be told, I feel like after the 6th game, I want to see the Coalition do something different. I do feel like Gears 5 is a nice step up from Gears 4 but the formula as a whole has grown slightly stale. But it would be very difficult for them to radically change the concluding chapter of a trilogy, they can’t all of a sudden turn the gameplay upside down.
With that said, I hope after Gears 6 they work on a new IP and then they can bring back Gears in a completely different way.
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