After seven years, Microsoft finally released another installment in its once-iconic Gears of War franchise. But like so many beloved franchises, Gears of War has become another vehicle for leftists to push their twisted cultural priorities rather than deliver more of what made the series a success.
Gears of War: E-Day promised a return to the series’ roots, bringing back the original game’s two protagonists in a prequel exploring the beginning of humanity’s war against an invading army.
With Gears of War: E-Day, developers had an opportunity to return to the original characters, gameplay, and atmosphere that made the franchise successful. But activists added things nobody asked for and botched what truly mattered.
Players encountered woke changes to the story, with forced “girlboss” characters, including a new female squad member who repeatedly overshadows the franchise’s established protagonists. Developers also shoehorned in a wide assortment of pride flags, just in case you missed the point.
Sales Down
According to Alinea Analytics, the game has flopped, generating an estimated $42.1 million in gross revenue against a potential $400 million budget.
The Coalition, the Microsoft-owned developer responsible for the series, did not have a difficult job. Epic Games had already laid the franchise’s foundation, creating a complete product and clear identity that resonated with fans. The people inheriting Gears of War are not asked to develop it from scratch. They are being trusted not to destroy what made Gears of War worth inheriting.
But after Microsoft acquired the franchise in 2014, The Coalition began destroying it. Gears of War 5 sidelined the previous game’s protagonist in favor of a new female lead. Repeatedly, The Coalition behaved as though the franchise was not something for the players, but for the greater progressive project.
Players Resist
In the face of public pushback, The Coalition’s leftist messaging was bolstered by ideological allies across the web. When one player created a mod replacing the girlboss’ dialogue with robotic beeps and whistles, Nexus Mods, a popular website for sharing video game mods, removed it, citing its anti-discrimination policy.
The result was deeply symbolic: fans attempting to reclaim the experience they wanted from a franchise they loved, only to encounter yet another institution enforcing the leftist message.
Modern cultural products are increasingly hollow versions of the franchises fans remember, stitched together from pieces of the past and filled with the leftist priorities of their creators.
‘Go Woke, Go Broke’
The good news is developers can’t do this forever. They are still making a product, and if that product doesn’t resonate with a wide enough audience, the free market speaks.
Call it “go woke, go broke.” Companies can make products their customers want, or they can turn those products into vehicles for their own cultural priorities and hope the audience follows.
Customers will only tolerate so much subversion of something they love before they take the hint, conclude that its new handlers have nothing but contempt for them and the content, and stop giving them money.
Jax McKinney is a social media manager with Heritage Action.