"Moving on to future projects": Gears developers end Map Builder function; is Gears 6 on the way?

Some unfortunate Gears 5 news has recently come through, which could also mean good things for the future of Gears 6. According to developers, The Coalition, they are removing Map Builder from Gears of War 5.

Interestingly, there will be no future updates to that part of the game. Additionally, the developers gave their reason why on social media as well. Could this mean that Gears 6 is well on the way?

“PSA: We’re removing #Gears5 Map Builder and unlocking its achievements for all players as the team focuses on future projects.”

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Gears 6 could be in development already

Gears 5’s Map Builder is officially being removed from the game, so there are no more custom maps for Escape Mode. This does mean that Gears 5 players who did not mess with custom maps will now receive two achievements for free: “I Made it All By Myself” and “Homegrown Hive.”

But why was this done in the first place? According to the developers, this was done so that they could work on other projects, which is certainly an interesting statement. Other than Relic Rescue (2011) for Facebook and Microsoft Flight (2012) for Windows, all of their games have essentially been Gears of War games.

So. if the company is working on other projects, it’s entirely possible that The Coalition is working on a new Gears, potentially for a release date of 2022 or 2023. While no firm release has been talked about when it comes to Gears 6, there’s a real possibility that something is in the works.

“Shifting to a new engine is a big undertaking, so we want to be clear that we will not be announcing any new projects or titles for some time.”

In the past, The Coalition has pointed out that they are focused on Unreal Engine 5, and are also working on new-gen development. With this in mind, it could still be a few years before the inevitable sequel gets revealed.

It’s also important to consider the Nvidia GeForce leak. So far, many of the games that have appeared on that list have come out, such as Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. On that list, Gears 6 had a November 10, 2022 release date, but that could still be a placeholder.

However, back in July 2021, there was talk of The Coalition working on a new IP that isn’t Gears related, so whatever is being worked on could very well be something that is not in the Gears universe. However, the franchise is definitely what The Coalition is best known for, and with updates to Gears 5 slowing down, it points more towards a potential new release sometime in the future.

With all of that being said, aside from the Nvidia leak, there is currently no substantial evidence for Gears 6. As such, everything at this stage should be considered speculative.