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Gears studio The Coalition moving to Unreal Engine 5

Gears studio The Coalition moving to Unreal Engine 5

Microsoft's Coalition developer is moving to Unreal Engine 5 for its next project.

In a post on the Gears 5 website, the studio said that it was moving to the next generation of Epic's game engine for future titles. It does add, however, that it might be some time before any new games are announced.

The Gears of War franchise has always used the Unreal Engine, due to the fact it was initially created by Epic Games for the Xbox 360 back in 2006. The first four entries in the series used a modified version of Unreal Engine 3, before development moved to Unreal Engine 4 with Gears of War 4 after Microsoft bought the IP.

Unreal Engine 5 was announced back in May 2020.

"As we look to future games, we’re excited to start shifting our resources to next-gen development using Unreal Engine 5," The Coalition wrote.

"Gears of War has always been at the front of Unreal Engine development – as a breakout 720p title for Xbox 360 through last year’s 120FPS multiplayer update for Xbox Series X|S – and we’re excited to continue that tradition by developing on UE5 for multiple new projects in the coming years."

The studio continued: "Shifting to a new engine is a big undertaking, so we want to be clear that we will not be announcing any new projects or titles for some time."

By continuing to use Unreal Engine, The Coalition will be able to make the most of some of the new additions that Epic has made to its tech, including its MetaHuman initiative, if the studio so wished.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.