Gears of War: E-Day has had fans on the edge of their seats since its unveiling at the 2024 Xbox Showcase.
But what many didn't realize is that the game has actually been in development for much longer than expected—over five years, to be exact. This marks one of the longest development cycles in Gears' history.
This prequel, which takes place during the chaos of Emergence Day, has been a big project for The Coalition, and recent info points to its development starting as far back as early 2020.
A LinkedIn profile from a Senior Level Designer at The Coalition gave us a hint about how long E-Day's been in the works. This discovery was first brought to light by Deckard (@Freed091509) on X, who dug into the game's development history. The profile noted that the game has been in development for five years and two months.
This means work on the project had already been well underway before it was officially revealed. Considering how long AAA games generally take to develop, this timeline shows that E-Day has been a long-term focus, even during the last years of Gears 5.
On top of that, The Coalition is not the sole developer behind E-Day. It has been confirmed that People Can Fly, renowned for its work on past Gears games such as Judgment, is also on board. This partnership seems like it’s opening up new possibilities for the game, but without losing what made the Gears series iconic.
With a five-year development cycle already behind it, the big question is: how much longer do we have to wait? Microsoft hasn't set a specific release date yet, but many expect it to be sometime in 2025 or early 2026.
Some fans are hoping for a complete E-Day reveal at the next Xbox event, which could include the first-ever gameplay footage. Others worry that a long development cycle could indicate challenges behind the scenes, as we've seen with other titles that took longer than expected.
For now, all eyes are on Microsoft's next showcase—if E-Day really has been in development this long, there's a good chance we'll finally get to see more of it soon.