Gears 5 takes place months after the events of Gears of War 4 and focuses on Kait Diaz (Laura Bailey), an Outsider who is descended from Myrrah (Carolyn Seymour), Queen of the Locust Horde. As Kait, the player must uncover the origins of the Locust and the truth behind her family history. James Dominic “JD” Fenix (Liam McIntyre), his best friend Delmont “Del” Walker (Eugene Byrd), and JD’s father Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) also return.[4]
Plot
JD, Del, and Marcus are officially reinstated in the COG Army alongside Kait. Reformed as the new Delta Squad, they travel to the ruins of Azura at Damon Baird’s request in order to launch a Hammer of Dawn satellite and restore the Hammer of Dawn network. After doing this, they return to the COG capital, New Ephyra, where Baird informs them that he still cannot locate the other satellites. First Minister Jinn receives word that Settlement 2 is under attack by the Swarm and sends JD’s squad to assist in the evacuation. It is revealed during the battle that JD, Del, and their former squadmate Fahz Chutani had previously been deployed in Settlement 2 to quell a riot, which resulted in civilian deaths and prompted JD and Del to go AWOL, and that it was JD who gave Fahz the order to open fire on the civilians, causing Del and Kait to lose their trust in him. As the Swarm threatens to destroy the evacuation convoy, JD orders Baird to fire the Hammer of Dawn prematurely. While the Swarm forces are annihilated, the Hammer of Dawn malfunctions and begins firing wildly, severely injuring JD.
Four months later, Kait and Del go to an Outsider village located in the skeleton of the Riftworm to try to convince them to join the COG. The village chief, Kait’s uncle Oscar, refuses, but they are suddenly attacked by the Swarm. Kait is captured by a Snatcher and experiences vivid visions of controlling the Swarm forces. She escapes the Snatcher but is unable to prevent Oscar’s death which she witnesses through her visions. COG reinforcements then arrive to evacuate the village. Kait tells everybody about her visions, and Marcus recommends she head to the secret lab at New Hope to find answers, with Del joining her. At the lab, they find clues leading them to Mount Kadar, a former Locust stronghold.
Kait and Del reach another secret COG lab hidden beneath Mount Kadar. There, they find an AI construct of scientist Niles Samson, who explains that the Locust were the result of his experiments by hybridizing the DNA of Imulsion-infected children with the indigenous creatures of the Hollow. He also reveals that Queen Myrrah was originally a human immune to Imulsion, who could control the Locust due to her genetics being used to create them. However, when her newborn daughter Reyna, Kait’s dead mother, was taken away by her father, Myrrah led the Locust to rebel against the scientists and gain their independence. Kait realizes that she is the next queen and demands to be separated from the Swarm’s hivemind. Niles puts Kait in a special machine connected to a dormant Berserker called the Matriarch, which successfully severs Kait from the hivemind but also resurrects Reyna in the process, this having been Niles’ true intention. Niles is destroyed by the revived Matriarch, and Kait and Del kill it before escaping the facility. Realizing Reyna is now the Swarm’s queen, Kait reaffirms the COG’s need to reactivate the Hammer of Dawn.
Baird takes the group to the Vasgar desert, where the Union of Independent Republics’ secret space program was located. They meet Baird’s former squadmate Garron Paduk, who reveals that the UIR had a rocket loaded with Hammer of Dawn satellites ready to launch. JD and Fahz arrive to help, with JD apologizing to Del and Kait for his previous deception and subsequent behavior. The squad manages to assemble and launch the rocket and acquire targeting beacons to help control the Hammer of Dawn, though they encounter a giant Swarm creature called the Kraken. The group escapes when Paduk picks them up in a Raven to fly them home.
At New Ephyra, Jinn attempts to arrest Kait, intending to forcibly connect her to the hivemind in order to find the central Swarm Hive. Before she can do this, however, the Swarm attacks New Ephyra. The Gears attempt to set up UIR targeting beacons to provide targeting data to the Hammer of Dawn, but the Kraken destroys them. The transformed Reyna appears and attacks Kait, JD, and Del, forcing Kait to choose to save either JD or Del, leaving Reyna to kill the other. Kait and the survivor fight their way back to their friends but are attacked by the Kraken. The remaining soldiers are soon overwhelmed until the squad’s robotic companion, Jack, kills the Kraken by sacrificing itself as a targeting beacon for the Hammer of Dawn. In the aftermath, Marcus warns Kait that Reyna will return, with Kait remarking that they will find her first before discarding her mother’s Locust necklace.
Hivebusters
Hivebusters is a DLC for Gears 5 released on December 15, 2020. It acts as a six-chapter secondary campaign for Gears 5. Following Team Scorpio — Jeremiah Keegan, Lahni Kaliso, and Leslie “Mac” Macallister — Hivebusters is a direct prequel to the Gears of War: Hivebusters comic book series which starts shortly after the events of Hivebusters ends. Supporting characters include Colonel Victor Hoffman from previous games, Hana Cole, the daughter of Augustus “Cole Train” Cole from Delta Squad and Tak, a King Raven pilot. The primary setting is the South Islands of Pahanu, Galangi, and Weilehi with Galangi having previously appeared in the novel series as the home of Bernadette Mataki.
Plot
En route to a secret mission, Team Scorpio’s Condor crashes on the island of Pahanu. Scorpio sends out a distress signal and are rescued from Swarm forces by a King Raven helicopter piloted by Tak. As they leave, Scorpio witnesses the Swarm being killed by an unseen, acid-spitting creature.
Scorpio are flown to the island of Galangi where they meet with Colonel Victor Hoffman and Hana Cole, the daughter of Delta Squad member Augustus Cole. Hoffman reveals that Pahanu contains a Swarm hive beneath an old abandoned doomsday bunker and that he wants them to deliver a chemical bomb to it made out of the deadly gas recovered from the New Hope Research Facility in order to destroy the hive. Using Keegan’s access codes as a member of the Onyx Guard assigned to protect Azura, Scorpio infiltrates the bunker. Getting fed up with a lack of progress, Mac impulsively tosses the bomb down a deep shaft, killing many of the Swarm forces but failing to completely destroy the hive. In the process, it is revealed that the gas is ineffective against heavier Swarm forces.
Returning to Hoffman and Hana, Scorpio reports on the failure of the bomb. Remembering the creature from the beach, Mac suggests using its venom against the Swarm and Hana realizes that combining it with the New Hope gas could create an effective weapon. Lahni recalls stories that her grandmother had told her of such a creature and suggests visiting her people on the nearby island of Weilehi to learn more about it. Joined by Hana, Scorpio visits the island, only to discover the village overrun by the Swarm and the people podded. Lahni finds information on the creature identifying it as the Wakaatu, a massive bird-like beast that spits a powerful toxic venom which the Weilehan use in a rite of passage known as the Awakening. Scorpio discovers that the Swarm were able to reach the island from Pahanu using lava tubes just before Hana is captured by a Snatcher. Scorpio chases the Snatcher through the lava tubes and rescues Hana, who is then airlifted out by Tak. Inspired by Hana’s ordeal, Mac comes up with the idea of allowing themselves to be captured by Snatchers in order to reach the heart of the Hive and deploy their bomb. Scorpio are attacked by the Wakaatu, but they escape in Tak’s King Raven.
Returning to Hoffman’s estate, Scorpio learns that they are actually part of a rogue operation, Hoffman having been forced into retirement for disagreeing with First Minister Jinn’s insistence that the DeeBees could handle the Swarm. Nevertheless, Scorpio and Hana dedicate themselves to the chance to stop the Swarm and save the human race. Returning to Pahanu, Scorpio follows the path of the Awakening and reaches the Wakaatu’s nest. Scorpio battles the Wakaatu and wounds it enough to take a sample of its venom.
With the Wakaatu’s venom, Hana is able to synthesize a new, more deadly bomb and create a way to protect Scorpio from the effects of the Snatchers so that they can emerge in the Swarm Hive and destroy it. Armed with their new venom bombs, Scorpio allow Snatchers to capture them, prepared to destroy the Swarm hive on Pahanu island from within.
Development
Gears 5 is developed by The Coalition as a sequel to Gears of War 4. Unlike previous games in the Gears of War series, the game is simply titled Gears 5 (without “of War” included in the title).[5]Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg explained that the new title was “cleaner” and that it was a natural change because most people had been ignoring “of War” for years.[5] For Gears 5, The Coalition decided to shift player focus from JD Fenix to Kait Diaz. According to studio head Rod Fergusson, “It was a natural choice. When you play through Gears 4, think of it as Mad Max: Fury Road. It was really Furiosa‘s story, and Max was the side kick. That’s how it felt in Gears 4, the whole game is about saving Kait’s mom, and really JD is there to help her.”[6]
Marketing and release
Gears 5 was announced at E3 2018, along with Gears Pop and Gears Tactics.[3][7] The game was released for Windows 10 and Xbox One on September 10, 2019 as part of Xbox Play Anywhere.[8][3] It was revealed at E3 2019 that for the game, a crossover with the upcoming film Terminator: Dark Fate would have players control either Sarah Connor with Linda Hamilton voicing her character or a T-800 Terminator model as either a pre-order bonus or with Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.[9] Moreover, action movie actor Dave Bautista appears as a playable character in a limited release where he uses his gimmick as a WWEprofessional wrestler after expressing interest in portraying Marcus Fenix in a potential film adaptation of Gears of War. [1][2] In addition to the standard and the ultimate editions, a Gears 5 Limited Edition Xbox One X Console bundle was announced to be released the same day as the game’s release.[10] The bundle includes the Ultimate Edition of the game, a Limited Edition Xbox One X console, controller, headset, wireless keyboard, mouse from Razer (for console and PC), external hard drives from Seagate, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and the standard versions of Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, and Gears of War 4.[11]
The game will receive enhancements for the Xbox Series X upon its launch, including higher resolution textures, new visual effects such as volumetric fog, and running at 60 frames per second at minimum with potential to run at up to 120 frames per second.[12]
A single-player expansion for the game, titled Hivebusters, was released on December 15, 2020. The expansion features the playable characters from the Escape multiplayer mode: Lahni, Keegan and Mac. In the pack, the three characters embarcked on their first mission as a member of the Hivebuster program on the volcanic Galangi islands.
