The Weapons of War series takes place in a detailed world with a lot of history. Individually, the games have fairly simple plots. Each involves the emergence of a major threat to humanity, usually following a small group of characters over the course of a military operation. Collectively, however, they form a complex tale of humanity’s inability to escape its own warlike nature; often deliberately drawing parallels to real military history mixed with an aesthetic somewhere between military and post-apocalyptic science fiction. Throughout the series, humanity is ironically on the brink of being destroyed by problems of its own making, caused by a long history of wars that spawned other wars. Ultimately, war is a cycle doomed to repeat itself, and the best one can hope for is to get through it in one piece.
With five main games and three spin-offs, the series has done a lot to build an engaging, if disturbing, environment. But while the five main games have done a great job fighting the locust horde (and later the swarm), there’s room to tell other stories about the planet’s destructive history. A spin-off of the games could explore other events, whether it offers new perspectives on things that happened in the game or things that have only been talked about. These are all moments that can make for a very interesting experience.
6 E-day
The story of Weapons of War contains several key events, one of which is brought up a lot but very little shown. Fans of the games know that the Locust War officially started with Emergence Day, also known as ‘E-day’. This was the day when the locusts emerged from the ground and began a campaign of genocide against the human race. The incident is discussed during the games, but surprisingly only seen once. During one of Hoffman’s flashbacks at the beginning of Gears of War 4, players get a glimpse into the chaos of Emergence Day, but there are only a limited number that can be covered in a tutorial. Other than that, the closest we got was judgementdealing with the aftermath.
Gears of War 3 had a campaign that lasted more than a day. A game about E-day could have a similar format, starting in the morning and ending in the evening. It should drop any pretense that the player can actually win. Perhaps, at most, they will achieve a small victory that will help prevent humanity from being completely destroyed. The focus should probably be more on surviving the locusts than on defeating them. The locust powers would be so overwhelming that the player would have to evaluate each situation to determine if they actually had a chance to participate, and stealth mechanics might need to be added as an alternative. This could bring some interesting twists to the standard gameplay.
5 The pinnacle of the locust war
The grasshoppers are a central part of Weapons of War‘s story, with the original games focusing on the ongoing war between them and the humans. However, players really only got to see the beginning and end of the conflict. judgement takes place right at the beginning, while 1–3 take place in recent years. That leaves a full fifteen years between the events of judgement and the original Weapons of Warincluding the four years Marcus spent in prison.
Such a gap would give the developers a lot of creative freedom, and it would even be an opportunity to revisit old friends. A prequel focusing on the locust war could be a chance to reacquaint yourself with some of the characters who died in the original trilogy, such as Kim, Tai and of course Dom. They may also reintroduce some supporting characters, such as perhaps a younger Bernie performing.
4 The beginning of the locusts
Weapons of War has typically followed human characters with the grasshoppers acting as the antagonists, but the series hasn’t exactly gone out of its way to give the COG a morale high. In fact, they often show that the COG is just as hateful and belligerent as the locusts they fight with. It may therefore be interesting to reverse the perspective and do a game that shows the locust perspective. It wouldn’t even be a big jump, since the locusts themselves come from mutated humans. That just leaves the obvious question of what kind of grasshopper-centered story could be told, well, what about a story put forth throughout the series?
One approach to a grasshopper-centric game might be to focus on their origins, something first suggested in Gears of War 2 but more clearly defined in 5. They could start with the experiments performed at the Mount Kadar lab seen in both games, and the eventual rebellion by proto-locusts before going underground. Then there’s the story of what happened until e-day, which would mean bringing back an old enemy – the lambent. This would also be an opportunity to revisit and perhaps better develop the motivations of some of the opponents of the original games, especially RAAM and Skorge.
3 Operation: Hollow Storm
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The events of Operation Hollow Storm made up most of the plot of Gears of War 2. It was an intense campaign with a full-scale attack by the locusts, including a giant worm that could only be killed from within, and culminating in the COG ironically destroying the only place that was actually somewhat locust-free. Heavy casualties were suffered and the battle would have quite serious consequences. The thing is, players only got to see a small (though crucial) portion of it in the game. More specifically, it was the parts where Marcus Fenix was present. But Operation Hollow Storm was a coordinated attack carried out by a massive army. That leaves room to look at the battle from a new perspective.
Obviously a game that takes place during the events of Gears of War 2 would not target the main cast. They might have a voiceover from Marcus on a radio call, or a performance from supporting cast members like Hoffman or Dizzy. There may even be a role for some characters who don’t get much attention in 2 like Jace or Bernie. But above all it has to be an original group of characters. This would be a story about the different background gear seen in the game, and depending on how the story played out, it could explore some of the consequences, such as giving more details about the immediate consequences of the sinking of Jacinto .
2 The Pendulum Wars
Each Weapons of War fan knows the Pendulum Wars. The infamous 79-year conflict is best described as the Cold War on steroids, and its legacy continues through the games’ events. One of the most obvious contributions of the Pendulum Wars was the Hammer of Dawn, a weapon of mass destruction used multiple times across the country. Weapons of War series. In Gears 5, it is also revealed that the Pendulum Wars were directly responsible for the even greater disaster that was the Locust War. Several key characters were veterans of the conflict, including Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and Colonel Hoffman. But really, the only time they were actually shown was one flashback in Gears of War 4.
A game set in the Pendulum Wars would be an opportunity to explore a crucial part of the series’ lore. It should break the usual format of people fighting locusts, but that may not be a bad thing. If the developers were really ambitious, they could add a level of moral ambiguity by letting the player control the characters both sides, perhaps alternating at different points between a COG and GUI protagonist. This would be different, but it would almost certainly fit into the core theme of the game, war as an endless cycle caused by human nature.
1 Sera’s Early History
Weapons of War takes place on a fictional planet called “Sera” (Ares spelled backwards), which acts as an allegory for Earth. Because the games are set in a world inspired by but ultimately separated from our own, it has its own complex history. However, not much detail has been given about anything before the Pendulum Wars. Most of the information given is quite general and does not allow much insight into specific people or events. There are traces of this past throughout the series, such as a fortress described by Del as being from “the days of kings and wizards,” but the main focus was on the present. It can be interesting to try and explore some of this history, possibly hundreds or thousands of years before the main games take place.
This would leave a lot of creative options depending on what part of Sera’s history the developers wanted to look at. Most likely, such a game would focus on a past war, with a familiar but shockingly different Sera. One approach might be to draw on major conflicts of the 18th and 19th centuries, perhaps with a COG precursor based on some of the great empires of the time. Going even further, they could play with some sort of medieval or renaissance-esque period, which would mean changing some of the usual gameplay by adapting it to more melee use and more conservative uses of firearms. This would be very different from the games players are familiar with, but it certainly fits the recurring theme of people unable to escape their warlike nature.
Gears 6 rumor has it that it is in development.
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