Gears 5 Will Not Have Loot Boxes Or Season Passes

The next addition in the Gears of War franchise, Gears 5, will not have loot boxes or season passes.

Multiplayer design director, Ryan Cleven, says that the developer behind the game, The Coalition, believes that the game will ‘set a trend’ in terms of how games monetise in the future.

Speaking at Gamescom, Ryan was asked whether or not the game will include microtransactions. He said that the game will have no loot boxes, however there is a store where players can spend real money on in-game currency Iron. This can be used to buy cosmetics for the game, reports Gamesindustrybiz.

He said that the system is “a very player-centric, player-friendly way of doing customisation and monetisation,” adding: “We really think we’re ahead of the industry here in getting rid of loot boxes and making sure that we can both service people that are looking to accelerate their progression or earn cosmetics using money but also keeping the integrity of the game experience.”

Asked whether this was a result of the controversy regarding loot boxes, he said: “We had made that decision before all that happened. We were sort of reading the tea leaves, I guess, and we were one of the earliest to adopt card packs inside our game. We thought we’d done it quite elegantly in Gears 4 — some people liked it, some people didn’t. There were other companies and other games that would have done it differently that people were less happy about,

“We put the challenge to ourselves: can we still provide purchasable things to players that want to purchase and still have the rest of the players really enjoy the system? That was a challenge we set right from the beginning of Gears 5.”

Amazing news!

Recently, it was revealed that the game won’t feature any characters who smoke.

According to a report from Variety, the anti-smoking organisation Truth Initiative partnered with Microsoft and The Coalition to stub out any references to smoking in the game.

Credit: Xbox Game Studios

Rod Fergusson, the head of The Coalition revealed in a statement: “I’ve seen firsthand the devastating impact of smoking,

“It’s always been important for me to not use smoking as a narrative device, which is why we made the conscious choice to avoid highlighting or glorifying smoking in Gears 5 and throughout the Gears of War Universe moving forward.”

Credit: Xbox Game Studios

Fergusson also took to Twitter to add: “I’ve been against smoking from the beginning and have worked hard to not make it a part of our franchise.

“Ever notice that the Dizzy concept art for Gears 2 has a cigarette but the actual character in the game doesn’t? I stopped it.”

Sounds like we can assume that smoking will definitely not be happening in the upcoming Gears of War movie…

Although not too much is known about the upcoming cinematic project, it’s hoped that it won’t fall victim to the dreaded curse of game-to-movie adaptations.

Speaking to IGN, Fergusson stated that the movie will stray from what fans of the games might be expecting, with the emphasis on it being a movie surpassing its history as a games series.

Credit: Xbox Game Studios

The Gears of War movie reportedly won’t be set in the same universe but instead in an alternate timeline.

Worryingly for fans of the games, Fergusson also said that the movie’s priority is on being a “great movie first” and a Gears of War movie second, which might leave a bitter taste in players’ mouths…

“In order for the movie to be successful, it has to be a great movie first and a Gears movie second,” said Fergusson. “Basically the way that we sort of reconciled that was, we said, ‘oh the movie should be an alternate reality. It should not be dependent on the game story, nor should it influence the game story.’”

Featured Image Credit: Xbox Game Studios