Blizzard Artist Corrects Geoff Keighley’s Gears Of War Mishap Saying It “Diminishes Technical Achievements”

Highlights

Gears of War: E-Day trailer wowed fans with stunning visuals and brought back beloved characters like Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago.
Despite initial confusion, the trailer was created using in-game assets and Unreal Engine 5, not CGI, as some assumed.
The plotline of Gears of War: E-Day will explore the first Locust emergence on Sera, taking players back 14 years before the original game.

The moment finally came this year during the Xbox Showcase for Gears of War fans. Although four years had passed since the launch of Gears of War 5, a brand-new and exciting trailer dropped for the new Gears of War: E-Day that just about made up for it.

Even though some surprise was felt that the iconic series wouldn’t be going down the path of continuing the cliffhanger story from its previous games, The Coalition won’t be shying too far away from its narrative. Another area the team isn’t bypassing is its art direction and even though fans, as well as Summer Games Fest host Geoff Keighley, assumed it was made using CGI, this wasn’t actually the case. This assumption led the cinematic character and creature artist at Blizzard to jump on social media to set the record straight.

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The Gears of War: E Day trailer received plenty of praise from fans who have been patiently waiting for its return. Coupled with stunning visuals of Marcus Fenix taking chucks out of Locust, the trailer also had some backlash regarding its CGI-looking style, mostly due to it being created by Blur Studio, who are responsible for the CGI cutscenes in Halo games. Geoff Keighley didn’t help matters when he posted via his Twitter/X account that made it look as though he was unsure if it was a real-time in-game trailer or CGI.

Jamir Blanco, Blizzard’s artist, came to the rescue by reposting Keighley’s original statement to say, “Saying it was a ‘CG from Blur Studio’ diminishes all the technical achievements you probably didn’t notice from how good it was.” and that it wasn’t a CGI trailer by the studio but rather “a realtime masterpiece using in-game assets.”

Keighley’s post also drew the attention of Xbox’s marketing director, Guy Welch, who also wanted to clear the misunderstanding up. “The trailer is developed with in-game models, textures, environments and props that players will see in the final game,” posted Welch “This follows the same method that we used for the Gears of War trailers for the first three games, which were made in Unreal Engine with in-game assets” – only this time, the teams are using Unreal Engine 5.

Gears of War: E-Day’s plotline will be 14 years before the first Gears game, which “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” and will also see the return of Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago. Unfortunately, no launch date is on the horizon just yet, but at least we know it’s now finally happening and will be released on Xbox Series X|S and PC.