Gears of War

Gears of War launched in 2006 as an Xbox 360 exclusive from Epic Games and quickly became one of the defining shooters of its generation. It dropped players onto Sera, a dark, war-ravaged planet where humanity, banded together under the COG, wages a desperate fight against the Locust Horde, creatures attacking from underground. Its key feature was a cover system letting characters dart between obstacles to trade fire from behind them – not entirely new at the time, but Gears of War popularized it and helped turn it into a standard for third-person shooters for years to come. Its iconic weapon, the Lancer assault rifle with an attached chainsaw bayonet, became a symbol of the brutal, in-your-face action, which the series paired with a dark, gothic aesthetic of ruined cities.

The original trilogy centered on Sergeant Marcus Fenix continued with Gears of War 2 (2008), which widened the scope of battles and added bigger, more cinematic set pieces and vehicle sections, and peaked with Gears of War 3 (2011), which closed out the war against the Locust and a new threat called the Lambent, and is often seen as the narrative and technical high point of the original trilogy. 2013 brought a prequel spin-off, Gears of War: Judgment, from People Can Fly, focused on Kilo squad's story before the events of the first game, experimenting with tougher level design but meeting a more mixed reception from players and critics.

Development of the series then passed to the newly founded studio The Coalition. Gears of War 4 (2016) introduced a new generation of characters led by JD Fenix, Kait, and Del and continued the original trilogy's story, while Gears 5 (2019) expanded the game with larger open areas to explore and the co-op Escape mode. The brand proved its flexibility further with the spin-off Gears Tactics (2020), a turn-based tactical strategy game for PC set before the events of the first title, showing that Sera's world could support an entirely different genre.

Over the years, Gears of War has become one of Xbox's flagship series, and alongside other titles of its era it helped define and popularize the cover system as a core building block of third-person shooters. Its Horde multiplayer mode, in which players team up against waves of enemies, also became an influential template for a whole range of later co-op shooters.