Xbox’sGears of Warfranchise has long been celebrated for both its campaigns and its multiplayer. The originalGears of Wartrilogy is often regarded as some of the best exclusive games for the Xbox 360 and the overall seventh console generation. Meanwhile,Gears of War 1’s multiplayer was so popular on the Xbox 360 that it rivaled the likes ofHalo 2as the most popular multiplayer game until the release ofHalo 3. With the upcoming release ofGears of War: E-Day, however, The Coalition may have a difficult choice to make regarding the game’s multiplayer compared to developments seen in recentGearstitles. This choice is to include only characters who appear inE-Dayor include characters who appear decades later.
Gears of War’s Multiplayer Character History
Unlike other contemporary multiplayer games of the time,Gears of War 1’s multiplayerhad gamers choose to play from a selection of characters and Locust drone troops seen in the campaign. Other games of the late 2000s and early 2010s typically had players create or customize their own character based on factions or soldier types, such asHalo’s Spartans and Elites orCall of Duty’s SAS and Spetsnaz. 2008’sGears of War 2was the firstGearsgame to feature playable characters who don’t appear in the game’s campaign or who died in prior titles such as Anthony Carmine and General RAAM. This set a precedent that would be carried over to most futureGears of Warmultiplayer systems.
2011’sGears of War 3was the first game in the series to include characters in multiplayer who have never appeared in any previousGears of Wargame, multiplayer, or expanded media with the introduction of the Golden Gear.Gears of War 3additionally established the concept of DLC introducing new multiplayer characters such as Alicia Valera and Michael Barrick from RAAM’s Shadow and including variants of existingcharacters such as Thrashball Cole Train.
2013’sGears of War: Judgmentintroduced the concept of characters from other games crossing over intoGears’ multiplayer with the inclusion ofBulletstorm’s Grayson Hunt and Trishka Novak. Similarly, 2019’sGears 5introduced the concept of characters from filmscrossing over into multiplayer, such as Sarah Connor, Grace, T-800, and Rev-9 fromTerminator: Dark Fate.
Gears of Warmultiplayer systemshave included several celebrities from the real world as playable characters, such as El-P, Killer Mike, Dave Bautista, Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods.
The Potential Character Roster of Gears of War: E-Day
Little is currently known aboutGears of War: E-Day’s gameplay and multiplayerother than the Locust are expected to appear in a more horrifying way than ever before. The Coalition will likely release some information onE-Day’s gameplay soon, given that it’s been almost a year since the game’s announcement. While players wait for that information, it can be hypothesized who will appear onGears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer roster. For most of the franchise’s existence, the multiplayer systems have continuously expanded their roster with new characters, dead ones, variants, and even those who never appeared inGears mediabeforehand. However,Gears of Warmultiplayer has only handled the issue of a prequel once before withGears of War: Judgment.
Besides the short Aftermath campaign, most ofGears of War:Judgmentwas set roughly 14 years before the original trilogyof games. Despite this prequel setting,Judgmentstill included characters who would appear in later games but only those who were active somewhere else on Sera duringJudgment’s events, such as Minh Young Kim. Characters who were enlisted later such as Benjamin Carmine or Dizzy, did not appear inJudgment. GivenE-Day’s direction of getting back toGears of War’s roots, The Coalition may lean towards featuring only characters who were active around Emergence Day in its multiplayer. However, based on the microtransaction trends seen inGears 5, The Coalition could include Swarm-era characters as unlocks or paid DLC.
Characters Who May Appear in Gears of War: E-Day’s Multiplayer
So far, young Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago have been confirmed to appear inGears of War: E-Day, but more classicGears of Warcharacters will likely appear inE-Day’s multiplayer. Based on howE-Daywill take place at the beginning of the Locust War,E-Day’s multiplayer could possibly feature several characters who were active at that time, such as Colonel Hoffman, Sofia Hendrick, Damon Baird, and Tai Kaliso. In terms of Locust characters, the multiplayer could feature the traditional Locust Drone ranks as well as Locust superiors such asGeneral Karn, General RAAM, Ukkon, Skorge, and more. However, while new characters introduced inE-Daywill further populate the game’s roster, The Coalition could miss out on featuring some fan-favorite characters from Swarm-era titles for newer fans.
