The next Gears of War game will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, and as a result, Gears' studio, The Coalition, will not be announcing any new projects or titles for "some time." In the studio's words, this makes sense, as the transition to the new engine is a major undertaking.

Epic Games developed the first four Gears games, so the series has its roots in that engine; Gears of War 1-3 used Unreal Engine 3, but Coalition entered the game with Gears of War 4, the first game to use Unreal Engine 4. Gears 5 and Gears Tactics also use UE4.

"As we look to future games, we are excited to begin shifting resources to next-generation development using Unreal Engine 5," The Coalition's announcement reads. Gears of War has always been at the forefront of Unreal Engine development, first as a breakout 720p title for the Xbox 360 and then through last year's 120FPS multiplayer update for the Xbox Series X|S.

Few games have been publicly announced as UE5 projects at this stage: Fortnite will eventually move to UE5, and Microsoft has confirmed that Senua's Saga: Hellblade II will use the next version of the UE5 engine UE5 is expected to be released later this year, and the PS5 tech demo still looks great, especially for those who like realistic-looking rocks.

As for Gears 5, development continues on Operations 7 and Operations 8, both of which will add new maps, characters, and special events to the multiplayer component. The new content and "Featured Playlist" will be rolled out until the end of 2021, after which development will cease.