Gears of War: E-Day Xbox Exclusive Was 'Natural Choice,' Studio Head Says

Did you fire up Gears of War: E-Day this week and wonder why your PlayStation friends can't join the fight? You're not alone. The game launched as an Xbox exclusive, and studio head Mike Crump says that was always the plan.

In an interview with the BBC, Crump explained that Gears has been tied to Xbox for two decades. "Gears has been an exclusive franchise to Xbox for 20 years now. It's sort of entwined deeply with the brand," he said. That's a fair point, even if Gears of War: Reloaded did hit PS5 last year, so the series isn't strictly exclusive anymore.

But Crump argues that success isn't just about sales. He told the BBC the series is meant to carry the banner for Xbox and give people a "reason to be in the Xbox ecosystem." That philosophy apparently led Xbox CEO Asha Sharma to pull E-Day from the PS5 release slate earlier this year. The trade-off? The game will likely sell fewer copies than it would have on PlayStation.

Crump isn't losing sleep over that, though. He says The Coalition takes a broader view: "We measure things like, are we showcasing the platform? Are we pushing the hardware to its 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."

If that's the goal, mission accomplished. E-Day looks stunning on both Xbox Series X and Series S—so much so that The Coalition had to use some Page File trickery to get it running smoothly on the weaker console. And it's not just a pretty face: our reviewer Ryan McCaffrey gave it a 9, calling it a heartfelt prequel that stands toe-to-toe with any other Gears campaign.

Still, sales matter, especially with Microsoft in the middle of a months-long restructuring. Right after launch, developers at The Coalition told Eurogamer they were expecting layoffs. Crump has since addressed those concerns, saying, "For us that's about shipping a great game that people are going to love and I feel like, as a team, we've done that."

So will a gorgeous exclusive and high review scores be enough to keep the layoff machine at bay? That's the million-dollar question. What do you think—is keeping Gears exclusive worth the lost sales? Let us know in the comments.