Gears of War made its emergence back in 2006, bringing an industry revolution in several different spades that would be repeatedly iterated on for decades to come. A marquee title in the Unreal Engine series with accessible, then-groundbreaking game design holding many imitators and few innovators. As Xbox enthusiasts slowly anticipated the next installment of the Halo franchise, it gave Gears a perfect opportunity to be nurtured into a record-breaking franchise both commercially and critically. With five sequels and two spin-offs, Gears remains as the strongest bullet point of IP success that Microsoft has held since the original Halo: Combat Evolved and Forza Motorsport.
That isn’t the reason why I truly enjoyed Gears of War though. Born in 94 I had missed the pop cultural action phenomena that would define the 80s and 90s through films like Predator, Terminator, Die Hard, and practically every successful Jackie Chan film released in that window. (I got Rush Hour though!) Never did I have a chance to see the haughty bravado of actors like Arnold or Stallone ham it up on the camera against combative aliens or time-traveling robots. I barely got a shot at experiencing Nakatomi Plaza due to some strange localization of a SEGA arcade classic. Growing up in a relatively stable household deep within Chicago at the turn of the 21st century would give me a different set of pop cultural experiences birth from high-octane action films and television. Early 00s western kung fu and the occasional Rush Hour sequel would be my action cliché makeup. At the time it was fine, but I wouldn’t see those films engraved into my social setting at the same caliber of the previously mentioned films until much later.
Fast-forward to 2006, Gears of War came at a time where early teenaged me captured that action hero high, condensed in an adrenaline-pumping and catch-phrase slinging 5–7-hour romp. Immediately I found a connection in the larger than life, football-proportioned gang of rejects in Delta Squad as they chain sawed and shot gunned their way through hordes of the monstrous, bug-like drones within the Locust Horde. The comparison never struck to me as to why I loved this franchise in the same vein as others loved their action films until the series 3rd installment, but this franchise was my Predator. My Aliens, my Starship Troopers. Not only did I get the experience of relishing in mindless action nirvana, but I also got one of the rare sparks of connection that can only happen with these sorts of pop-cultural landmarks; the ability to talk about it with my friends at school.
Talking about video games at school isn’t exactly a weird thing at all, no. There would always be heated conversations of the latest Pokémon title and which console among the big three was currently the best. Gears of War would be the first time where friends and I would get to get together before, during, and after school and just talk about the experience as a whole and integrate what we played into our day to day lives. From there and well into our first years of high school that group of mine had been completely immersed in Gears of War, tooth, and nail. Quipping silly lines from the game (getting in conflicts multiple times for using the profanity featured), early internet forum slumming in hopes of a shred of sequel rumors, almost weekly local and online sessions, buying merchandise — this wasn’t like Halo LAN nights or Melee meet-ups we’ve had times before. This was the equivalent of an outing in the city to White Sox games, or trips to the park and even taking the train downtown together. Gears of War was not only the connective tissue to a significant portion of my then and current friendships, but also accomplished what few games have done for me: leaving its remarkable, bombastic nature is practically engraved into a huge chunk of my life.
Nowadays I keep up with the series to a significant degree; it helps that its multimedia attempts have melded into several other interests of mine, through comics media and the eventual terrible film adaptation that will no doubt come to fruition in the future. I’d admit that the fervor for the series since it’s release has dwindled for me, not because of slowly fading interest over the course of it’s several releases. Everyone eventually loses that burn for a game they adored at the time. Yet the personal memories of social connection that unraveled simply from buying and playing the game with friends and neighbors won’t go away from my mind anytime soon.
