According to a recent internal email reported on by Business Insider and IGN, Microsoft is shutting down a diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) team. The team’s lead claims that the company’s leadership has showcased “investigated and evidenced discrimination, harassment, and toxicity.” Additionally, they claim that their “role and team were eliminated due to ‘changing business needs’ as of July 1st, 2024.” It also states that DEI programs and teams are at a danger across all businesses.
“Project 2025 looms and true systems change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020.” They said. Microsoft recently announced that prices for Xbox Game Pass and PC Game pass have increased effective July 10 for new members and September 12 for existing subscribers. It also announced the new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier, which will replace Xbox Game Pass Console and will no longer include access to day one Game Pass games.
Details for the publisher’s upcoming Gears of War: E-Day :
Emergence begins.
Experience the brutal horror of Emergence Day through the eyes of Marcus Fenix in the origin story of one of gaming’s most acclaimed sagas.
Fourteen years before Gears of War, war heroes Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago return home to face a new nightmare: the Locust Horde. These subterranean monsters, grotesque and relentless, erupt from below, laying siege on humanity itself.
Built from the ground up with Unreal Engine 5, Gears of War: E-Day delivers unprecedented graphical fidelity.
Bringing the Monsters Back
Gears of War: E-Day is set 14 years before the events of the original Gears of War and tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera. As the game unfolds, we’ll get to see how an ill-prepared world responds to a threat like the Locust. The Coalition are being very intentional to recast the Locusts not simply as foes but as living nightmares. These aren’t your typical alien or zombie videogame antagonists; they’re mysterious, formidable creatures that dwell beneath the earth, tapping into our deepest fears. “The design brief was pretty simple,” explains Searcy. “Locust are the ‘monsters under the bed.’ What would happen to the people of Sera in seeing this overwhelming army of monsters and trying to figure out…what are you going to do?”
Studio Art Director Aryan Hanbeck explains further, “When players experience E-Day, they see the monsters through the eyes of those encountering them for the first time.” The design team prioritized redefining the Locust Drone, which had slowly become mere cannon fodder as the series progressed. “We transformed the drone into something fearsome, physically intimidating, and utterly brutal,” Hanbeck notes, highlighting its enhanced status just behind Marcus and Dom in the announce trailer. “Getting the drone right was crucial; everything else with the Locust we’re scaling up from there.”
The Beginnings of Brotherhood
This story is of course, told from the perspectives of a much younger Marcus and Dom. While the pair are seasoned veterans of the Pendulum Wars (the human conflict taking place before the series begins), this is a wholly new threat for the pair to navigate: “The best Gears games have these super emotional themes around shared burden, belonging, trust and loyalty, and Marcus and Dom have a really interesting relationship going into E-Day,” Searcy says.
To give some background context leading into the story of E-Day, Marcus and Dom are connected through Dom’s older brother, Carlos, who died on the battlefield with Marcus. The pair were best friends, so Marcus and Dom are in the early stages of forming a kinship over a shared loss and navigating those emotions together.
“We’re telling the origin story of Marcus and Dom and their bond… this is the bond that defines the franchise,” Searcy adds. “They’re not the characters we know from Gears 1 to 3. They don’t have 10 years of fighting the Locust between them. When the game opens, there’s supposed to be peace on Sera, and they’re trying to figure out life without this person they both loved.”
“People are going to see the formation of this brotherhood that is so iconic to Gears.”
Stay tuned at Gaming Instincts via Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook for more gaming news.
