Gears 5 development coming to an end, The Coalition moving to next-gen only Unreal Engine 5

Looking to the future with Unreal Engine 5.

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What you need to know

What you need to know

Gears 5is one of thebestshowcases for the prowess of next-gen consoles like theXbox Series XandXbox Series S, as well as what can be accomplished with Epic Game’s Unreal Engine 4. The Coalition, the developer of the popular Gears (previously Gears of War) series, has long been at the forefront of Unreal Engine game development. Today,The Coalition looks to continue that legacy by moving to the next-gen only Unreal Engine 5for “multiple new projects in the coming years.”

What does this mean? It means that The Coalition has officially begun to shift resources and teams to the new Unreal Engine 5 for game development, and it means that development on the already-excellent Gears 5 will now start to come to an end. Gears 5 has already received a ton of post-launch support, most recently with the arrival of the fantasticGears 5: Hivebusters DLC, and now we’re going to start seeing the end of this active content support.

Through the end of 2021, The Coalition will launch several new updates for Gears 5 with more content and featured playlists, and will drop new playable characters, maps, and more with Operations 7 and 8 (of course followingOperation 6from February, 2021). Gears 5 isn’t being cut off instantaneously, and instead will enjoy more updates through the rest of the year until The Coalition is fully invested in the development of several unannounced projects (which won’t be revealed for a while, most likely) on Unreal Engine 5.

Gears 5 is one of thebest games on Xbox, and it’ll be exciting to see what The Coalition is able to accomplish with the power of next-gen gaming hardware and the versatile Unreal Engine 5.

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Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter@BoddyZachary.