Platform Exclusivity

Gears of War: E-Day launched this week, and while it is excellent, the game was pulled away from a PS5 launch earlier this year. In a recent interview, The Coalition Studio Head Mike Crump claims that this was all part of the plan.

In an interview with the BBC, Crump defended the choice to be an Xbox exclusive, despite a likely ludicrous budget saying, "Gears has been an exclusive franchise to Xbox for 20 years now. It's sort of entwined deeply with the brand."

However, Gears of War: Reloaded did launch on PS5 last year, so the franchise as a whole isn't exactly Xbox-exclusive anymore. It's also likely that if E-Day did launch on PlayStation, it'd see higher sales numbers.

Hardware Showcase

Crump claims that the metrics for success go further than that, though. He told the BBC that the series is meant to, at least in part, carry the banner for the Xbox platform and give people a reason to be in the Xbox ecosystem.

Regardless, the game will now likely have lower sales than it otherwise would have. When the BBC asked Crump about that, he insisted that the studio is taking a broader view than just looking at sales figures and retention numbers.

"We measure things like, are we showcasing the platform? Are we pushing the hardware to it limits? Are we showcasing what the Xbox is capable of? ...Our goal basically is to be the best-looking game on the Xbox and really show the industry what's possible with our hardware," he answered.

Critical Reception

If the goal is to be a tech demo about what the Xbox consoles are capable of, it is a success. The game looks incredible on both the Xbox Series X and Series S, so much so that The Coalition had to rely on technical optimization to get the game running smoothly on the less-powerful console.

By going back to the beginning, Gears of War: E-Day returns to the heart of this series: Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and a Locust horde. E-Day delivers a prequel with strong characters while evolving the enemies, weapons, and combat of the franchise.

But even if the game is a critical hit and a technical marvel, sales numbers will inevitably play a role in the game's success, especially as Microsoft undergoes ongoing restructuring.

Time will tell whether strong review scores and high technical fidelity are enough to sustain long-term success for the studio moving forward.