Gears 6 Outline Was Written But May Have Been Thrown Out, Former Coalition Boss Says

Gears 6 hasn’t been officially announced by Microsoft, but the former head of The Coalition knows how he would have approached the game. Rod Fergusson, who now serves as general manager of the Diablo franchise, admitted he drafted up an outline for the project years ago.

Fergusson was asked on IGN’s Unlocked podcast whether he knew what happened after the cliffhanger ending of Gears 5. He prefaced his answer acknowledging he has “no insider information” but touched on what he did before leaving The Coalition for the Diablo franchise back in 2020.

“I did want to make sure when I left The Coalition that I left them in a good place,” Fergusson said. “So I did write the synopsis story for Gears 6. If I were to have stayed, here’s the game we would have made–at least from a story perspective. Now they probably threw that out and said, ‘Good luck and goodbye.’ And that’s fine. I definitely had where I would go with 6.”

Spoilers ahead for Gears 5:

At the end of Gears 5, players chose whether to save Marcus Fenix’s son JD or Del. So how the narrative continues canonically in Gears 6 has been debated after such a split path was offered. Fergusson said he’s intrigued to see how the studio resolves that in the next game.

Earlier this year, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb reported that Gears 6 would be the next game from The Coalition. The studio also apparently canceled two other projects and suffered layoffs.

As for Fergusson, Diablo IV early access begins today with the official launch happening June 5. For more, check out GameSpot’s Diablo IV review.