Gears 5

Gears 5 shifted the series' narrative from JD Fenix to Kait Diaz, whose visions and family past lead her straight into the heart of the mystery surrounding the Swarm and the enigmatic Locust. For the first time in the series' history, the campaign offered a partially open world — snowy plains and sand deserts can be explored on a sail-sled and later on the wheeled Skiff hovercraft, gathering side quests, treasures, and upgrades for the little robot Jack, whom the player controls and who can invisibly stun enemies or steal their weapons. Jack can also be handed over to a co-op partner, so even a support role has full meaning in cooperative play.

With this move, The Coalition noticeably enriched the game's pacing without abandoning the core cover-based shooting and brutal execution animations the series is built on: the open areas serve as breathing room between carefully directed corridor firefights. Visually, it is one of the most striking titles of the generation, with photorealistic snowy environments running even on the base Xbox One at a solid frame rate, while the Xbox One X pushed the game to a substantially higher resolution. Snowstorms, swirling dust, and vast vistas give the campaign an unusually melancholic atmosphere, underscored by a subdued orchestral score.

The multiplayer expanded the beloved Horde mode with five playable factions and an elaborate skill tree, added a new PvP mode called Escalation aimed at the esports scene, and also offered the cooperative Escape mode, in which a trio of players flee a hive ahead of spreading toxic gas. The game launched simultaneously on Xbox One and Windows 10 as part of Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Game Pass, reaching a record number of players right on release day. It subsequently received free updates for years afterward with new characters, maps, and operations, keeping an active community for a long time. Gears 5 is regarded as one of the high points of the whole series and firm proof of The Coalition studio's creative maturity.