Every Gears of War Campaign, Ranked

The 20th anniversary of Xbox’s Gears of War franchise is fast approaching and to help celebrate this momentous milestone, as well as celebrate the Xbox brand’s upcoming 25th anniversary, The Coalition and People Can Fly have finally launched the highly anticipated prequel Gears of War: E-Day.

Set 14 years before the events of Gears of War 1 and roughly 42 years before the events of Gears 5, Gears of War: E-Day has players witness the fateful catastrophic events of Emergence Day, the day the Locust first attacked humanity, from the perspectives of the young Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, and the rest of Bravo Squad.

With E-Day marking the grand return of the Gears series after a six-year-long absence of brand-new game releases, here’s a look back at every Gears of War campaign ranked by their story, gameplay, innovations, side features, and overall fun factor.

12

Gears Tactics

The Origins of Kait Diaz

Gears of War is primarily known for being a cover-focused third-person shooter, but in the late 2010s and early 2020s, The Coalition began experimenting with the series in other genres, with one such experiment being the turn-based tactics game Gears Tactics.

Taking place about one year after Emergence Day, Gears Tactics has players primarily control Coalition of Ordered Governments Sergeant Gabriel Diaz and Major Sid Redburn as they’re dispatched to take out the Locust scientist Ukkon, who’s responsible for creating the Locust army’s many monstrous mounts, as well Imulsion-infused super soldiers.

While Gears Tactics is a fairly fun, turn-based tactics game, it doesn’t really have that great of a story, as its characters never really grow beyond their cliché archetypes and players never get to see how Gabriel and Reyna, Kait Diaz’s parents, fell in love since Reyna only showed up in the game’s final act.

11

Gears of War: Judgment

Baird’s Big Adventure

People Can Fly helped develop Gears of War: E-Day, but that wasn’t the first Gears title the Polish studio co-developed, with that game being the franchise’s first prequel entry, Gears of War: Judgment.

Set a few weeks after Emergence Day, Gears of War: Judgment sees the arrogant, joking engineer Damon Baird star as the leader of Kilo Squad during the Battle of Halvo Bay, with Baird’s squad later being put on trial for disobeying Colonel Ezra Pound Loomis’ and going after Locust General Zamil Karn.

Making the typical comic relief Baird the game’s protagonist was an interesting if a bit of an odd choice and, while it’s great to see the Union of Independent Republics get more of the spotlight through the character of Garron Paduk, Judgment is entirely held back by its flashback framing and its small combat arenas meant to support its arcade-like Declassified missions.

10

Gears of War

The Game That Started It All

In 2001, the original Xbox’s definitive exclusive killer app was Halo: Combat Evolved, but the Xbox 360 didn’t receive its own original exclusive, platform-defining killer app until 2006 when Epic Games launched the third-person shooter Gears of War.

The success and impact of the first Gears of War cannot be understated, as it not only showed off the power of Unreal Engine 3 but practically defined the subgenre of third-person cover shooters thanks to its robust yet easy to understand gameplay and fun two-player campaign co-op, going on to become the most popular game on Xbox Live until Halo 3 released.

However, as much as I do love the original Gears campaign and its theme of destroyed beauty, I don’t think it’s held up exceptionally well over the years, especially compared to future titles in the series, due to the campaign’s sheer lack of enemy and weapon variety and an intimidating boss that doesn’t do much in the game.

9

Gears of War: Reloaded

Gears’ Brief Journey to PlayStation

The ninth generation of consoles has been a rocky time for Xbox to say the least, with one of the brand’s most peculiar decisions during this time being to bring many of its console-exclusive franchises to the rival PlayStation 5 platform, such as Sea of Thieves, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Gears of War: Reloaded.

Essentially a remastered port of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition which itself was a remaster of the first Gears game, Gears of War: Reloaded is a retelling of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, Damon Baird, and Augustus Cole’s first mission as Delta Squad, complete with all updated cutscenes, collectibles, and bonus campaign levels from UE.

Reloaded felt like a half-baked test to see how Gears would succeed on PlayStation platforms, as it added virtually nothing new to the then-10-year-old UE, leading Reloaded to become one of the poorest selling Gears titles of all time and making many fans question why Microsoft didn’t use Reloaded‘s resources to remaster the other two games in the original Gears trilogy.

8

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

An Admirable Anniversary Remaster

In the beginning of the eighth generation of consoles, the Gears franchise was facing a similar crisis that Halo faced in 2011, with its founding studio going on to work on other projects and a new studio being formed to continue the series, but first, that new studio had to prove itself by remastering a beloved classic and that remaster was Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

Released to celebrate Gears‘ ninth anniversary, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was a complete HD remaster of the original Gears game complete with updated and new cutscenes, new collectible rewards based on Gears comics, and five remastered campaign chapters that were originally exclusive to Gears of War 1‘s Windows release in 2007.

Ultimate Edition is easily the best way to experience Delta Squad’s first outing and the fall of Locust General RAAM, and for a 2015 remaster, it holds up remarkably well over 10 years later.

7

Gears 5

Kait and JD’s Identity Crises

2019 saw the Gears franchise be experimented with in many ways, not only with the mobile real-time strategy game Gears Pop! but also with Gears 5, which saw the mainline games temporarily lose the “of War” aspect of their titles and see the series feature its first true female lead in the form of Kait Diaz.

Set a few months after the events of Gears of War 4, Gears 5 sees the COG wage an all-out war against the newly emerged Swarm, with Kait and Del Walker going on their own mission to discover Kait’s familial connection to both the Swarm and the Locust as well as reactivate some dormant Hammer of Dawn satellites.

Gears 5‘s gunplay is some of the most smooth and visceral seen in the entire series, but the campaign is held back by some questionable story decisions, namely the fall of JD Fenix and its choice-based cliffhanger ending, as well as its shallow open-world design centered around the Skiff.

6

Gears 5: Hivebusters

An Eye-Opening Island Adventure

In contrast to Gears 5‘s main campaign, its DLC campaign, Gears 5: Hivebusters, actually presents a more traditional Gears of War campaign experience, one that’s full of non-stop action and interesting expansions upon some of Sera’s cultures and wildlife.

Taking place simultaneously with the events of Gears 5 after its second act, Gears 5: Hivebusters follows Jeremiah Keegan, Lahni Kaliso, and Leslie “Mac” Macallister of Scorpion Squad as they’re dispatched by Colonel Hoffman to investigate a way to destroy Swarm hives on Sera’s Polynesia-like South Islands.

While Hivebusters is significantly shorter than most Gears campaigns, it features some well-written characters with each member of Scorpio having to confront the sins of their past as they confront some of the most epic set pieces in the entire franchise, such as riding a gigantic metal door down a lava river, fighting the bird-like Wakaatu, and busting some Swarm hives.

5

Gears of War 4

The Swarm’s Awakening

Much like 343 Industries’ Halo 4, The Coalition’s first original product was one that had to find a way to continue the Gears series following the presumed extinction of the Locust and the Lambent and, to many Gears fans, they were largely successful in achieving that goal with Gears of War 4.

Set 25 years after the end of the Locust War, Gears of War 4 follows the young group of friends, JD, Del, and Kait, as they strive to help independent human settlements fight off COG DeeBee robots, only to inadvertently discover the awakening of the Swarm, a more monstrous evolution of the seemingly extinct Locust.

Gears of War 4 may be the most comedic Gears game and, while it does have a bit of a slow start with the DeeBees serving as the primary enemies for half of the campaign, its one of the most atmospheric and horrifying entries in the series, with the young trio having to walk through COG ruins and witness the gory evolution and tactics of Swarm units.

4

Gears of War 3: RAAM’s Shadow

RAAM’s Destructive Wrath

Gears 5: Hivebusters was a great campaign DLC, but it wasn’t the first campaign DLC in the Gears series, with that honor instead going to the phenomenal Gears of War 3: RAAM’s Shadow.

Unlike Hivebusters, RAAM’s Shadow isn’t directly connected to the events of Gears of War 3, with the DLC campaign instead having players embody the boots of Zeta Squad’s Minh Young Kim, Michael Barrick, Tai Kaliso, and Alicia Valera during the evacuation of Ilima City nine years after Emergence Day.

Zeta Squad features some of the best fan-favorite side characters of the Gears franchise, but what makes RAAM’s Shadow truly great is the ability to play as the titular Locust General himself in certain levels, allowing players to slice and dice their way through COG troops and unleash swarms of Kryll to shred COG soldiers to pieces alongside a squad of elite Locust Boomers.

3

Gears of War: E-Day

Gears’ Haunting Return

The Coalition’s best Gears of War campaign is also their latest, with that campaign being the fantastic prequel Gears of War: E-Day, which saw the series return to its more horror-themed and underdog roots.

As mentioned before, E-Day has players witness the fateful Emergence Day in some of the most horrific sequences seen in the entire franchise, as COG soldiers and civilians alike are ripped to shreds by Locust Drones, Wretches, Brumaks, and more led by the gruesome Locust Scorched Legion Commander Vraahk.

E-Day‘s emotional story of veteran and rookie soldiers trying to survive a hell unleashed is truly one of the best The Coalition and Xbox have released in years, but I think the campaign is held back from being truly perfect due to the absence of some notable Locust enemy types, vehicles, and weapons as well as open areas that disrupt the campaign’s pacing a bit.