Gears of War is getting a live-action movie and "adult animated series" from Netflix

Gears of War
(Image credit: The Coalition)

Netflix is making a Gears of War live-action film and animated series. 

The official Netflix Twitter shared the news to mark Gears of War's 16th anniversary. Developer The Coalition, formerly Black Tusk Studios, has signed on for a "live action feature film followed by an adult animated series" under Netflix, "with the potential for more stories to follow."

By adult animated series, Netflix is presumably referring to the vibe of mature works like the Castlevania anime and the Witcher's animated movie – not to mention the recent standout Cyberpunk: Edgerunners – as opposed to less gritty Netflix anime like Little Witch Academia and Brave New Animal. Expect a lot of blood, basically. 

The image shared with the news doesn't seem to be any sort of teaser or concept art for these adaptations, but rather a standard bit of art plucked from the series' long history. Netflix has a deep history of adapting video games, including the Castlevania series, which was turned into an anime show. The streamer is also adapting Assassin's Creed into a live-action movie. For more, check out the most exciting upcoming video game adaptations coming to screens.

The most recent Gears of War games, which shed the series' full name, earned pretty high marks. Our Gears 5 review highlighted new mechanics that revitalized the aging series, and our Gears Tactics review praised the spinoff's well-executed jump to the strategy genre. 

In April 2022, The Coalition announced that it would cut the Map Builder from Gears 5 in order to "focus on future projects." What those projects are remains to be seen, but we do know the studio is working in Unreal Engine 5; it released a stunning demo that could give us an inkling at how Gears 6 will look. Just days ago, Cliff Bleszinski, the original lead on Gears of War, claimed the series was sold to Microsoft because Epic Games was out of ideas

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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