It sure looks like Xbox One has finally secured a true hallmark exclusive with the newest Gears of War title, Gears 5. In a surprising turn of events, the fifth mainline entry to the aged cult third-person shooter series managed to become a bona fide smash hit, and broke all records for the most successful game launch this generation by the Xbox Game Studios. Quite the impressive feat when you consider that Microsoft’s first-party studios have major juggernauts under their belt such as Halo, Forza, Sea of Thieves and many more.
It should be noted that Gears 5’s launch coincides to a very special time, just as Microsoft has broadened their popular Xbox Game Pass over to the PC. This makes it not only much, much cheaper to play the game at launch for just a fraction of the retail price, but it further opens up the game to the large PC player base. So, it makes things very difficult to compare to other big game launches like Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 when gaming subscriptions weren’t even whispers in executive meetings and Xbox games were firmly bound to the consoles.
Nonetheless, with more than three million playing Gears 5 in the launch window, it’s still an insanely large success. Especially when one considers the strong multiplayer portion of the game, there’s little doubt that The Coalition has hit it out of the park with their third Gears of War game. Not only that, but they also pretty clearly cemented their position as Top Dog among the Xbox Game Studios. Something many were seeing as impossible when 343 industries has the keys to Xbox’s premier franchise Halo. That goes to show us just how far the Halo series has fallen from grace, especially compared to last gen.
No one should write off 343 Industries just yet however. Yes, Halo 4 & 5 didn’t really manage to stand toe to toe with Bungie’s offerings, but all signs point towards Halo Infinite being the most ambitious Halo game to date. And with Microsoft pushing it as a cornerstone title for the future of Xbox, Gears 5’s crown might be short lived.
