Once upon a time, Rod Fergusson knew that if players would hurdle a $60 barrier to a triple-A game, there would be some breathing room for the developers on the other side. Every design choice they made wouldnt be the one to make or break the game. They could count on new players hanging in as the story caught them up on a canon sprawling over a decade or more.
Gears 5, launching on Xbox Games Pass at the beginning of the month, inverted Fergussons concerns somewhat. The Coalition, the studio Fergusson leads, wasnt going to want for an audience; theyd probably get the biggest one any Gears of War game has ever seen. The game is, effectively speaking, free with a Game Pass subscription. So how would Fergussons team keep huge tranches of Game Pass players engaged, especially when they could tap out and play any of a number of other practically free games without considering Gears 5 a pile-of-shame sacrifice.
Source: N4G PC How Gears of War changed to become Xbox Game Pass biggest launch