How The Coalition DESTROYED Gears of War 

Marcus goes AWOL: Gets sentenced to life in prison and stays behind bars for years. Baird goes AWOL: Gets a whole game about his court martial, barely escapes execution and is demoted to private. Kait goes AWOL: Somehow she gets everyone around her to tell her how awesome she is and how everything she did was fine. She faces no punishment whatsoever for going AWOL.

"For Christ sake, your black guy doesn't even go wooo" -Flashgitz

In gears of war judgment when Baird didn't do what he was told he got court-martialed. When kait did it nothing happened.

Coalition: "Kate is the first strong female character" Anya, Sam, Bernie and all the other badass women in gears: "Am I a joke to you?"

Why even make a sequel to an already wrapped up story line? There is 80 years of pendulum wars and 17 years of human-locust wars to cover.

Remember whenever marcus and his team went inside the rift worm to kill it from within in gears of war 2? That's shit was awesome.

this video made me cry because gears of war has basically lost its identity

Story-wise, GOW 3 was the perfect ending for me. there was hope for humanity to recover after all the sacrifices and suffering of the main cast.

You’re so right about the respect for authority thing. I just played gears 1 again. Marcus will give Hoffmann shit, but he doesn’t question his orders. When Kim dies and Hoffmann puts Markus in charge, Markus falls in line and accepts his responsibility. Baird complains, but he immediately falls in line to the chain of command. This is important for accurately portraying an elite military unit. Dispute over leadership gets people killed in real life or death military operations. Experienced veterans understand how important it is to fall in line

God, it's telling that I find Lizzie, an essentially throwaway character who literally dies in the opening act of Gears 5, to be a better and more interesting new character than Kait, a character who now has 2 games under her belt. At least Lizzie was actually funny and seemed to have taken her driving job seriously when it mattered. Killing her off in the first act was a damn shame, cause she had the potential to be the best character in the whole game.

One thing they should do: A Gears Of War 2 ultimate edition.

The enemies of Gears 4 & 5 are lame. The Locust were a terrifying mysterious subterranean species that enslaved other species. They had their own religion and architecture. Part of why I continued playing Gears of War was to figure out what the hell the Locust were. The characters were also a lot more interesting in the original Gears trilogy.

Man so many people are focused on the dark and gritty thing, but I'm here looking at Gears 1-3 and I see a story of brotherhood and the things soldiers have to do to both survive and protect the brothers in arms besides them. The Locust war was started because the Locust needed to survive and run from the Lambent, but then Gears 5 ruined that and instead changed it to, Queen Mirrah started the Locust war because "government came and took my baby!" Gears 5 has absolutely destroyed an immense amount of lore in the series. It killed my interest in ever getting another new Gears game afterwards. Edit: I would prefer a game set before 1 and let's bring back Dom as the main character

At the end of campaign when you had to choose who dies I chose del just because I didn’t want Marcus to be upset i couldn’t care about Jd or Del.

Thank God I wasn't the only one who FUCKING hated. Playing as Kait...

They actually had a great female character, Anya.. Espically in the third, where she quickly grew to one of my favourite characters.. Yet coarse they literary kill her to focus on Kait

They should have explored the war before the locust and followed Fenix thru his youth. That would have been waaaayyyyy better. Also the dark gritty setting needs to return.

the problem is,these franchises that used to be made in the 2000’s they were real quality because back then story was what would sell a game,gritty games like dead space,fear,resident evil,gears of war,lost planet all these were truley rated M. they don’t make games sadly to sell to the same demographic,we all know battle royals and multiplayer breast feeding like seasons and micro transactions is what makes the money know and the demographic for that is a lot younger so they know what they are doing. they just don’t make games like they used to,the publishers aren’t interested in anything that might wastes assets like more campaign content then multiplayer content. i could go on but i think you guys get the gist.i used to love gears and gears 2-3 was the peak.

The hate boner for authority in these new games is so weird. They make Prescott out to be an asshole in Gears Tactics like he enjoyed ordering the Hammer Strikes on Sera. It was a hard decision made by multiple people that helped buy humanity some time despite the huge sacrifice. The hate towards him in the third game was understandable since he disappeared after the 2nd game. Though we learn that he had to leave to help Adam Fenix with developing counter measure weapon.

I used to stay up all night & skip classes in middle school just to play the old gears games. I got my childhood friends into gears. It’s my favorite game of all time. The coalition completely crapped on gears. I actually even had a conversation with cliff blezinski(Creator of the old gears games) i asked him why did he leave gears & he replied with “It was just time to move on to a new game” which he created lawbreakers. Dude you don’t understand how much i miss Gears. It was the one and only game that I loved. You described this video perfectly.

a Gears of War 3 remaster would be great, the Horde mode in that game was so fun

The only emotion I felt was hate for kait

I dumped it after playing 4 - I had a feeling that the game wasn't gonna be that good, but a good friend of mine used to play 1-3 with me and we loved it so gears or war soon became the series that we played together and as a result we decided to play 4; We enjoyed it to some degree, but we also saw it's flaws and as a result I decided to not even bother with 5, I could see that the game was losing it's charisma at 4 so I got turned off. It's no longer the mature dark and gritty shooter game that I used to know, it's now just a shell of what it used to be.

As other people have said, I miss the dark, gritty, atmosphere of Gears of War... remember when this series used to be about a band of brothers trying to survive in a worn-torn world and not knowing if they'd live to see the next day...? I'm just not getting that same feeling anymore. The atmosphere in Gears 5 is too damn bright (both literally and metaphorically) and the main protagonist is annoying and a terrible leader. Also, the dialogue in this game was forced as hell and every cutscene I just wanted them all to stop talking.

All I want is a gears of war 2 ultimate

They talk about having strong female characters but they killed a potentially awesome one in the beginning of gears 5, lizzie carmine. Why? Becuase they just had to kill a carmine? Wtf!?

Gears 5 isn’t even a gears of war game, they literally took out “of war” so it’s definitely not the same franchise

I actually had some hope for 5. I thought that maybe her going AWOL would be a huge problem and Del would be trying to convince her how illogical this was during a time of war. I thought Kait was intentionally being portrayed as a bratty child because the game would follow her change from a whiny, inept little girl into a logical leading woman. These hopes were all quickly destroyed when I realized that she never improves and the story is written entirely around her proving that "Authority=bad, no consequences=good"

I remember the Cole Train rap thing was like "WTF is that" but in a confused way. It was good btw

I couldn't stand kait worst idea for a lead character, she was just a brat. Holding up missions with her visions of the swarm and not saying anything! The originals battled the locust for years and she just freely walks around with their pendant around her neck!? Gtfoh. And what's with the choose who dies? We didnt choose if dom would die or tai... the story was just the story, none of that pick your adventure bs. Yeah this was the worst.

The new enemy faction are just Walmart bargain bin locusts.

I would genuinely be fine to never see JD, Kait or Del ever again. Totally start over, fuck it bring Dom back

I also didn’t like that Kait was calling the shots. She’s literally the lowest rank of the group. Captain Fenix, Lieutenant Walker, and Chutani, Sergeant Fenix, and then Corporal Diaz. Anyway, I’m one of those people who enjoyed the new games, but the originals will always be king in everything except visuals in most ways

Applauds are in order, you’ve articulated something I’ve had trouble communicating to others when I said that gears 5 was a massive pander to people who aren’t even looking their way.

I think Kait is supposed to be the villain, but Coalition changed their mind during development.

Love how Kate's hair stays in style during the whole conflict.

I still dont understand what 99% of gnasher damage is in gears 5.

Ferguson, not the coalition. As soon as he left they started scrambling to fix all his bad directions. I can see their efforts. That gives me hope for the next entry.

Gears of War 2: The one game in the series that’s not only broken the sequel curse, but in some respects SURPASSES the original into becoming the standard of perfection for the Gears of War franchise. The Zenith’s Apex. Gears 5: The grim reality of failure itself when you take a property, remove all nuance and purpose, place a background prop as center stage, and demand fans to shower said prop with praise and profits. The only thing similar is the action and little else. Oh, and no REAL conflict to speak of.

It's crazy how many problems you could've fixed with the Swarm if Marcus said "The Lambent never died". I feel like Adam's device should've killed like 99% of the Lambent but that 1% survived and hibernated for decades, evolving into the Swarm and jumping from a weird mineral-based lifeform to organic in order to survive. It makes no sense to me that the Locust would go from a fanatical religious military order to a zerg-esque hivemind infestation. It feels MUCH more fitting for the Lambent, a "purer" form of Lambent.

I would love to have a Gears of War game set during the Pendulum Wars but I dont want the Coalition touching any part of it

Coalition ruined the Gears...They should have made Ultimate Edition of every Gears instead of forcing new ones. The war ended in Gears 3.

The coalition bang on about the importance of having strong female characters, but they killed Anya off screen and gave Sam 2 lines of dialogue in two games. We ain’t buying it.

If I'm being honest, when I got done with both Gears 4 and 5, it immediately went away from my mind. The story from both never left an lasting impact in my mind, unlike the previous games. When I finished Gears of War my first thought was "The Lightmass offensive was a success. But was it really?". When I finished Gears 2 I was still a bit emotional from hearing Benjamin Carmine's dying words and Dom finding his tortured and broken wife. When I finished Gears 3 I felt for Marcus because they have finally ended a long war but at the cost of everyone he ever cared for, except Anya. These last 2 games never had an impact on me like that after I was done with them.

Honestly they should've just remastered gears of war 3, and continuously update it, season passes, new content new maps, new characters! Gears 5 literally caters to everyone but the hardcore gearheads! Its actually quite disrespectful to the fans that kept it going. Gears of war died as soon as they decided to change the name.

I was actually privately talking to AShinyRay about these ideas yesterday and this video was released, I couldn’t agree further. I wouldn’t say judgment was a fan favourite though :P but I can see now as to why you like it, it did break the mould and built on other ideas. Anyway, ultimately excellent video, you’ve done a great job in analysis & deconstruction. The only new character created by TC that I like is JD but that’s also because of the link to Marcus. Also yeah Marcus ain’t even the same in 4&5, war veteran, killed locust generals, lost brothers in arms just to get shoved about by an inexperienced cadet (Kait) Just give us the Fenix Collection & call it a wrap.

Ok you lost me at Judgement... the first 3 are the pinnacle of the Gears franchise. Judgement was the beginning of the end.

I find it funny that years later, nobody really found it important that Judgement had extreme potential in showing the first Onyx Cadet female Implying there are other Female Onyx Gaurds. To which the Onyx Guard are knowk to be the "The Secret Service" of the COG. That in itself is a big deal. Hell, i wouldnt mind a GoW game where an Elite Squad of Onyx carrying out secret tasks and building up to a bigger picture. And with the imagery and pressense of the Gears 3 Onyx Guard, being Convicted, Strong, and as Proffesional as they are, Id love a Halo: Reach esque game to represent them better

Identify politics and diverse hiring is ruining aaa gaming. Bioware went totally woke and lost all their top talent

The coalition doesn’t understand GOW is supposed to be a grimdark horror setting where technology is advanced but not advanced enough to keep humans alive, the robots were primative and supposed to be incredibly valube. The new GOW is wow high tech robot power ranger man and super halo gun shooty shoot simulator.

I’ll never forget 1-2-3 for the memories I’ll never forgive 4-5 for shitting on them

“A Fenix will rise again to defeat the evil” Then here comes Kate Diaz

Honestly gears of war tactics story was pretty good, not the gameplay it’s self but the story was way better than gears 5 story for sure.

i think the best era for games was the 360 and ps3 years

What I’d like to see in a nutshell - better blood not orangey goop. -Remove Kait -Default Curbstomp by pressing B not a swift kick in the ass. -Remove Kait. -A better story surrounding the Swarm. -Remove Kait. -Better looking swarm with indentifiable Armour instead of some steel shit plastered across their bodies. -Removing Kait

It breaks my heart to see how far Gears of War has fallen. I love the first three games, the books and comics that would make you lose yourself in the storyline. I can't stand all the WOKE BULLSHIT that is ruining great games! They go out of their way to ignore already existing strong female characters just so they can make their own in a way that would appeal to a small percentage of people who most likely don't even play the game. In doing so they alienate the vast majority of players that know and love Gears of WAR.

The comments are “Halo died in Reach” kind...

The Hivebusters DLC is proof that there's still hope in the Gears series. That was a blast and the story was interesting and got me wanting more.

The coalition was the bigger monster than the locusts were.

Gears 1 was what kept me hooked on Xbox back in 2006. It’s sad to see both halo and gears treated like garbage by Microsoft

Being born in 2006 the year the first gears was made, me and my father have been loyal fans to this game and it is sad to see the bad road this franchise is going down

Brutally honest video, you don't beat around the bush and I respect that. I pretty much agree with everything you said. Thematically, story and character-wise, the new trilogy simply cannot hold up to the originals. I hope TC at least tries to improve execution in Gears 6, but it's too late to fix the underlying story and characters themselves, or the surrounding world of these sequels. Imo, as you said, TC should just go back to the Locust War era - do a prequel in the vein of Judgement. And for the love of God, do away with petty identity politics and pc bs. Unfortunately I don't see the latter happening without a completely new team; it's contagious, and TC is infected.

This video is PERFECT. Thank god someone is addressing this.

Personally I think by a story telling aspect humans should lose in gears 6 to such an extent it pushes them back to that blek reality we had in gears of war 1 . It would also fit the Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times

The Coalition pulled a 343i and fucked up the second game in their trilogy

I would be keen for a campaign set in the early days of the locust war in the UIR, focused around Paduk and how Karn totally wiped out UIR nations

Gears of War 3 was the best gears in my opinion. Why is there a bayonet on the retro lancer and a blade on bottom of the torque bow yet someone decided "ya just swing there knife." Who decided "hey let's attach the same button to rev the chainsaw on the lancer to the reload button" when in gears judgment you just held the melee button. I think little lazy choices like this paint a bigger picture when you think about it and look closer at the rest of the game. Why do executions look so silly? And example is how in gears 3 the retro would just slit their throat but in the newer gears their head explodes? Why is there a wrestling move that completely Gibs a player?

Instead of gears of war 4 being a cut to when Marcus had his son grow up it should’ve been a new squad with D Carmine, tasked to clean up any remaining locust that may have survived it’s a long shot idea since we are told that they were all wiped out but I’d find it more entertaining playing as a squad and not 3 teen friends and a dad.

Just to be honest. Gears should've stopped at 3. 4 and 5 are a joke.

Fun fact: Gears of war judgement was meant to be a DLC but was rushed to be a full game. But you hit the nail on the coffin with this video, i have been trying to tell people that gears 5 felt like it was a game to push this political feminist bullshit. People play games to get away from that bullshit and to have fun. But good video and keep up the good work.

Honestly they could have done the whole judgment rout and gone into the past to let us experience what the pendulum wars were like considering it was just as big a war as the Locust war

The story and characters for me are a mixed bag when it comes to Gears 5. I definitely agree with you on the points you made, particularly on the old characters and how they inspired and faced consequences for their actions. The game definitely has its flaws there. And a game set during the Pendulum Wars would be interesting as we got a taste of it in the prologue. And I also agree that Gears of War 3, Judgement, and Tactics was a good enough point to end the story. Another idea I had that could make for an interesting game is one from the Locust perspective, dealing with the Lambent and conquering Sera. The game could follow Raam’s Shadow where you play as Jermad or Vrol, and a COG Gear we know. As for what I like about the current games, it’s mostly their gameplay. Mantle Kick and Execution, Horde and Escape with its classes, fortifications, and mutators, and Free-For-All. In terms of Kati’s story, it seems like it might be better as a novel than a video game. I don’t hate her as a character, but she’s definitely not my favorite compared to the classic cast of characters. I think since she was born and raised as an Outsider, I think that’s where she has a problem with authority, especially with the COG. The game should’ve followed JD since he’s an interesting character in terms of feeling like he has to prove himself given who his parents are, perhaps wanting to craft his own legacy. Of course, that’s where he makes mistakes and tries to own up to them. He could also join the Hivebusters, try to gain experience that way. Del is as you said is mostly the comic relief. He’s the main lead’s best friend, but doesn’t have his own personal goal like Dom did which helped ground him as a person and as a character. Maybe he could be brought under Baird’s wing. He has a lot of experience with machines and science. And given he took Niles data, maybe he could work hard to see if there’s a way to reverse what happened to those captured by the Swarm, maybe find a way to sever the link between them and the Hive.

“THEYRE SINKING CITIES WITH A GIANT WORM”

Honestly if you ask me they should make a game just about jd of what he had to go through after gears 5 instead of playing as Kati because he was really starting to grow not just as a character but as a leader as well and to expand the world of gears and to put something in between gears 5 and 6 so we at least have something better then this and am I the only one who knows that Cliff said he’s willing to come back and make gears I’m pretty sure he’ll make the game a lot better or they could make a game about the Original Delta squad after gears 5 instead

I been a gears fan from the beginning, gears 5 is utter shit. They should just call it gearsnite. The micro transactions are a complete disgrace. The ranking system is useless, and have you tried to play co-op vs A.I.? Its garbage. Unplayable at best.

Where are the gears 3 days when gears was actually great? Now we have this. Great video man

Judgement wasnt a fan favorite lol

Gears suffers the same problem halo has. New companies that have no clue what made the original trilogies so great. These people are just trying to milk both franchises and run them into the ground. Sad to see these great stories just get shittier with each new game.

My complaint are companies continuing stories that already have an ending. Gears and halo has literal years of lore for games to perfectly be placed in. Let's see the middle or beginning of the covenant war and locust horde

I seriously hope that later down the line someone else will make a Gears of War trilogy, the swarm and everything was really interesting to me and how they came about existing along with the entire story, I was completely ready and excited to just be back in the universe. Then it all just fell flatter than a board. I hope someone else will make a game about it and then the community can just subconsciously collectively agree that the Coalition's games didn't exist and were actually just really bad spinoffs.

Cliff Bleszinski admitted that there was ideological messaging in the first two gears games. The pendulum wars were supposed to be an allegory for the wars in the middle east which were fought over oil. After Gears of War 2 was released, he stated that the torture scenes in the game were an allegory for what was going on at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. So there have always been ideological messages in the Gears of War series.

One of if not my favourite gaming franchises gone the way of most sci-fis these days, never really been much of a versus guy but as far as the single player goes, gears 5 (and tactics) were very dissapointing, enough to inspire me to write my own re-write for both 4 and 5, never done that for any other franchise. Really feel like fans could do a better job than the actual developers of most franchises these days. Sad times, ... Out of interest how many people are jumping ship? anyone sticking around for 6 or nah? :)

This video aged so well. With all the Sweet baby inc/GamerGate2 BS going on rn I wouldn’t doubt they had a hand in this game. This game was one of first turning points.

CliifyB left for a reason, it saddens me to see my childhood game die. I hope they pull their heads out of their behinds and at least ask Cliff for consultancy, or better yet, let him be the creative director.

bro im a hard core fan since 2006 everything u talked about is how i feel about the game the game is so lame it has become or try to become something is not hate gears 5 with a passion hope Microsoft takes cliffy b offer and MGGA

I always wanted to experience a game where it is from the Onyx Guard faction perspective. While at the same time, every damn game shits on the Onyx Guard where they're supposed to represent the best and brightest soldiers/officers of the Coalition's Military. Hell, without men and women of the Onyx Guard making hidden effort of preserving Tyran History, intellectuals, and still attempting to organize a resistance against the Locust. I feel like the Onyx Guard are under-appreciated and relegated to become nothing more than a joke, like Death Troopers. (In the extended universe, they're badasses, however in the media for the masses, they're pushovers). I am not saying what the standard COG military did had no meaning, but we haven't seen the level of ideals, personal conflicts, and or values of the COG from the Onyx Guard. (I understand there are glimpses of CoG values from Lt. Kim, Onyx Guard Male/Female (G3 and Judgement), Keegan). Fuck! I wanted to at least play in a videogame of a Last Stand of the original Onyx Guard during the Locust War. On Azura Island, or different and new locations on Sera. "No Retreat, No Surrender, No Defeat!!!"

Thank you for a great breakdown and being completely Blunt about how many of us feel. SJWs did what SJWs do. Ruin everything. I will continue to play the original Three. I will not mourn the loss of the identity of gears. I will just pretend the last two atrocities did not happened.

Hopefully with E-day, there's life in the old dog yet.

I agree it’s a disaster

Yep. We lost Mass Effect to the Andromeda Failure, and now we get Gears. Is not that we are getting older. It is that the world is getting dumber.

I used to love the gears of war campaign, but after 4 let me down I didn’t even bother with 5.. which is crazy cause I loved the gears lore and game so much

GOW 2 is so detailed. I just love shooting the flesh off of a brumak only to see it's skull and it's still attacking.

I actually thought Gears 5s story was extremely respectful to the universe with it's story. I actually liked the narrative, but would like more focus on JD in the next game.

Gears 1: An unwinnable war Gears 2: The Offensive Gears 3: The End of a journey Gears 4: A New Threat Gears 5: let's throw everything the fuck away just to have a strong lead female character who actually isn't good at her job so we'll try harder but not really

I just want them to make a gears game set during the pendulum wars.

The stupid hair and masculine face features on women kill it for me.

I got suckered into 4 thinking it’s was gonna be like 1, being a horror action game that gears 2 kept but I definitely think that horror action like 1 and 2 isn’t ever coming back.

The biggest thing I hate about 5's story is how it feels like the the trilogy didn't even matter. You pointed out a lot of great moments and struggles that the characters went through. All the work they went through is now undercut by a giant monster destroying everything in one night. Now moments like Dom's sacrifice don't feel as special when you know the characters would be back to square one again in only 20-30 years.

Marcus's father sacrificed himself for nothing. Thanks Devs

I dropped the series when they started calling it Gears. Knew that identity politics is gonna ruined this franchise fast.