New job description information on LinkedIn is showing that The Coalition Studio, the studio behind the newer Gears of War games, is working on a new unannounced project for Xbox, possibly confirming a new first-party game is on the horizon. This news comes a little over a month after E3, where the Xbox and Bethesda showcase unveiled a multitude of new games and announcements that included new games, updates, and Xbox Game Pass additions.
Gears of War 5 revitalized the franchise and made it new even though it continues the plot from Gears of War 4. When Gears 5 was released in September 2019, the first game in the franchise to just be Gears in the title, it was the second Gears of War game The Coalition had developed after taking over the franchise from Epic Games. The newest installment in the franchise brought back RPG elements to the game and included co-op and PVP modes at launch. Significantly, all content and map-packs added to the game post-launch were free. Gears 5 was introduced as a way to give players what they love and put the franchise in a better place. Gears 5 was simultaneously available on Game Pass at launch and it still outsold Gears of War 4.
Saturday afternoon, Klobrille, an independent reporter of Xbox Studios and Bethesda news, tweeted the screenshot of a portion of a LinkedIn profile of Pedro Camacho D'Andrea, a Level Designer at The Coalition. The screenshot says for the last six months he has been a Level Designer on a new IP. In a reply to Klobrille's tweet, there was a link to Scott Cowie's LinkedIn profile as well. Cowie, a senior game designer at The Coalition, also mentions in his profile that at The Coalition Studio he is currently Lead Level Design on an "Unannounced Project." The information from both D'Andrea's and Cowie's profiles seemingly confirms a new IP is in the works. This correlates with The Coalition hiring full-time workers earlier this year for work on a new project.
Unlike the screenshot of D'Andrea's profile, Cowie's profile does not include a time frame for how long he has been the Lead Level Design for the unannounced project, but the time frames may be connected. It is highly possible that The Coalition wants to keep this information under wraps since D'Andrea's profile no longer features that information. It's possible that The Coalition doesn't want fans to get their hopes up for news anytime soon and having a timeframe allows fans to predict when new information will come from the studio directly. Many are speculating that the unnamed project could be Gears 6 since Cowie worked on a plethora of levels for Gears 5 and Gears of War 4 as Senior Level Designer and on the Gears 5 Hivebusters DLC as Lead Design/Lead Level Design. Although this is just speculation, there do seem to be a lot of coincidences.
Predicting when new games from a beloved franchise will be releasing is a rock and a hard place situation. Though what the project is that The Coalition is working on is unknown, they are known for working on the Gears of War games, including Gears Tactics and Gears Pop!. Now with the LinkedIn profile descriptions updates, it is known they are working on something. If The Coalition Studio releasing a sneak peek of the Unreal Engine 5 is any indication, whatever project they're working on will look amazing.
Source: Klobrille/Twitter