The Coalition

The Coalition is a Canadian video game studio based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and one of Xbox Game Studios’ most important first-party developers. They are the current custodians of the Gears of War franchise, responsible for every entry in the series since Microsoft acquired the IP from Epic Games in January 2014. The studio’s history is longer and more complicated than the Gears connection suggests, going through four names before settling on The Coalition in June 2015.

I have been a Gears of War fan since the original game on Xbox 360, and watching The Coalition take the franchise and actually make it better rather than just keeping it alive has been one of the better storylines in gaming over the last decade.

The Studio’s History

The Coalition’s story starts in 2010, when the studio was founded in Vancouver as Zipline Studios. Their first game was Relic Rescue in 2011, a small title that led to a rename as Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver. In 2012 they released the flight simulator Microsoft Flight, and later that year rebranded again as Black Tusk Studios, with an ambitious brief to build a new major franchise for Microsoft comparable to Halo. That project was cancelled when Microsoft acquired the Gears of War rights from Epic in January 2014. Black Tusk was handed the franchise, Rod Fergusson, who had been executive producer on the original Gears trilogy at Epic, was brought in to lead the studio, and in June 2015 the name changed to The Coalition, a direct reference to the Coalition of Ordered Governments from Gears lore. The name change was deliberate: when people hear 343 Industries they think Halo, when they hear The Coalition they should think Gears.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and Gears of War 4

The Coalition’s first release was Gears of War: Ultimate Edition in August 2015, a remaster of the original 2006 game rebuilt in Unreal Engine 4 with 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second and five previously PC-exclusive campaign chapters added. It was a strong debut that proved the studio could handle the franchise’s legacy. Gears of War 4 followed in October 2016, set 25 years after Gears of War 3 and introducing JD Fenix, son of Marcus Fenix, alongside Del Walker and Kait Diaz. It received favorable reviews and was nominated for best action game at both the D.I.C.E. Awards and The Game Awards.

Gears 5

Gears 5 released in September 2019 and is broadly considered The Coalition’s best original work. Shifting the protagonist focus to Kait Diaz while expanding the scope to include open-world sections, it received strong reviews and won Xbox Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. Rod Fergusson departed in March 2020 to join Blizzard Entertainment, with Mike Crump taking over as studio head. The studio continued with Gears Tactics, a turn-based strategy game developed with Splash Damage, and Gears 5: Hivebusters, a DLC expansion, both of which received positive receptions.

Unreal Engine 5 and Support Work

In May 2021, The Coalition announced a full transition to Unreal Engine 5 for future projects. During the period between Gears 5 and their next major release, the studio contributed support work across several Xbox first-party titles, including Halo Infinite and the Xbox Series X/S tech demo The Matrix Awakens. In 2023, Microsoft’s broader layoffs affected the studio. Gears of War: Reloaded, a further remaster of the original game co-developed with Sumo Digital and Disbelief, released in August 2025 for Xbox Series X/S, Windows, and PlayStation 5, marking the first time a Gears game appeared on PlayStation.

Gears of War: E-Day

Gears of War: E-Day is The Coalition’s next major original title, co-developed with People Can Fly. Set before the original Gears of War during Emergence Day, the event when the Locust first surfaced and began their assault on humanity, it returns to Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago as the protagonists and is designed around four-player co-op from launch. It is an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive and is among the most anticipated Xbox first-party releases in development.