Collaboration Between Flit Teams and The Coalition Celebrates Gears of War: E-Day Theme
By Image by draw of The Coalition/Xbox.
Polish developer People Can Fly has been brought in to assist The Coalition on Gears of War: E-Day.
The studio previously worked on Gears of War: Judgement and contributed to the first three Gears titles. In the announcement, CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski referred to it as “a privilege and an exciting opportunity” to return to the franchise. “We are profoundly thankful for our partners’ trust and support on this journey.”
Mike Crump, studio head for The Coalition, also expressed his excitement to “collaborate with the talented team at People Can Fly, who have been part of our franchise’s legacy for so long.”
This partnership brings some stability to People Can Fly, which experienced a turbulent 2024. After laying off 30 employees in January and canceling one of its unannounced projects in April, it ended the year pausing development on another project and cutting an additional 120 positions.
In June 2023, People Can Fly announced it had entered a work-for-hire agreement with Microsoft regarding one of its properties. At that time, it stated Microsoft would be financing the then-unknown project, which was rumored to be budgeted between $30 million and $50 million.
It takes two (or more) to create a game
The Coalition has previously balanced co-development tasks with its own projects. Many of these collaborations have been connected to Gears: it assisted Splash Damage on the 2020 spin-off Gears Tactics and Mediatonic on Gears Pop! for mobile platforms.
Beyond the Gears series, it previously collaborated with 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) on Halo Infinite, and with WB Games on The Matrix Awakens. Gears of War: E-Day is the first game that Coalition is leading development on since Gears 5 back in 2019.
The upcoming Gears prequel will also not be the only major Xbox title with a prominent co-development partnership: Crystal Dynamics has been assisting The Initiative on the forthcoming Perfect Dark reboot, and Eidos Montreal is aiding the development of Playground Games’ Fable. Certain Affinity, while not a major first-party Microsoft studio, also has a solid history of assisting in the Halo games.
For People Can Fly, co-developing E-Day provides another opportunity for recovery. In 2014, co-founder Adrian Chmielarz stated that the team’s work on the PC port for the original Gears “saved the studio,” and led to them taking the lead on Judgement.
About the Author
Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com
A Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has penned articles for a wide range of platforms including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his work can also be found at io9 on Gizmodo. Don’t ask him about how much gum he has had, as the answer will likely be more than he is willing to admit.