Gears of War 5 and two spin-offs announced at Microsoft’s E3 conference

Two years ago, Gears of War made its big return with Gears 4. The game went on to garner plenty of praise amongst fans and critics, but we've all been left wondering what's next since then. Fortunately, the franchise made a huge splash at E3 this year, with three games announced in total, including Gears of War 5.

During Microsoft's conference, Gears Pop was announced as a cute spin-off title for mobile, taking on the art-style of Funko Pop figures. If that was all they had to show, then it would have been bitterly disappointing, but fortunately, Microsoft delivered. Not only did we get a quick look at Gears Tactics, but we also got an extended story trailer for Gears of War 5.

Gears of War 5 will pick up after Gears of War 4, with much of the story focussing on Kait Dyaz, rather than JD. If you saw the final tease at the end of Gears 4, then you already have a rough idea of where things are heading. Unfortunately, we won't be getting our hands on Gears 5 this year, but it will be releasing in 2019. From the looks of it, the story will be quite personal, re-focussing on two characters rather than a squad of four.

Gears Tactics is another spin-off game with its own self-contained story. We only saw a brief glimpse of it on the Microsoft stage and for the time being, we don't have a release date. We do know that it takes a lot of inspiration from the XCOM series and will be heading to Windows 10 as an exclusive. While turn-based strategy can work well on console, currently the main focus is on getting this game to PC.

KitGuru Says: Gears of War 4 was criticised by some for not changing up the formula enough. This time around, things appear to be different, with Gears 5 stripping back the story to focus on fewer characters at once, and sending them on a more personal journey to scenery we've not come across in the Gears universe before. 

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