Gears 5 is rich with lore and history, similarly to the games before it. The Gears storylines are well done in allowing any player to jump right in and generally understand the story that is transpiring, as well as some of the politics between the conflict-actors. Gears 5 is no different, and while understanding previous history or events that transpired in prior games helps, the story is fleshed out enough that any newcomer can follow the plot.
Given the ending of Gears 5, clearly fans can expect another sequel at some point in the future. Of course, a refresher of Gears 5's plot is helpful, given a major paradigm shift that transpires in this games' story and sets up the trajectory for the next game to come, seemingly.
COG Wants To Revive Hammer of Dawn
JD, Del and Marcus are back in the COG Army, with Kait by their side, and they are instructed by Damon Baird to go to the Azura ruins to launch one of many necessary satellites into space. These satellites are supposed to put the Hammer of Dawn network back online, a weapon that plays a major role in the series and is essentially a game changer in war. It can destroy anything on the ground which it targets from space, using a guided Imulsion-fueled laser beam from space.
After a successful mission, the team returns to New Ephyra, their capital, and Baird discovers that the other satellites in the network are missing and the Hammer of Dawn still can not be restored. To complicate the efforts even more, First Minister Jinn discovers this mission and directs them to cease all operations in their attempt to restore the network, given that the Hammer of Dawn project was decommissioned at the end of the previous Locust War.
This was because it posed too much power and cost the lives of many during the historic and infamous Hammer of Dawn Counterattack, which destroyed much of the planet. It also had long term consequences and ramifications, causing many wastelands, which proved to be fertile grounds for the Locust to build new homes within and re-populate themselves.
Following an attack, JD saves his squad and many other lives when he directs Baird to turn on the Hammer of Dawn prematurely. Given the network is not fully restored, nor do they have the device itself which can pinpoint coordinates for the laser, he guesses that his own body be used as the coordinate in which to guide the laser to, risking his own life and barely escaped being obliterated.
However, the Hammer of Dawn quickly malfunctions, seemingly because the equipment on JD becomes damaged and loses its ability to broadcast coordinates to the satellite. It begins to go berserk, randomly targeting sites around the approximate area, which ends up killing a character named Lizzie as it strikes her convoy. Ultimately, the battle is lost and COG is out-powered when the Swarm show up with major reinforcements.
Months later, morale is low, and Kait and Del arrive at a remote outpost known as Outsider village in ice-cold wastelands, in attempts to recruit the village populace to join the COG, as they clearly need more numbers for war efforts at this point. Oscar, Kait's uncle and the chief of the village, stubbornly refuses. But it does not take long for him to change his mind after a Swarm attacks the village and nearly kills Kait, as she becomes ensnared inside a Snatcher. Inside, she experiences lucid visions of the Swarm's network and how it operates.
After escaping from the Snatcher and ultimately fighting off the Swarm, her father, Oscar, is killed. Leaderless and no longer safe, the village evacuates with COG reinforcements. Meanwhile, Marcus directs Kait to travel to a secret lab in New Hope, as Del accompanies her, so she can find answers about the meaning of her visions, as well as the headaches she has been suffering throughout the game.
Kait Discovers Who She Is
The lab's lead scientist, Niles Samson, has done extensive work researching children of parents who endured Imulsion poisoning, especially miners. Samson believes answers can be found at Mount Kadar, where Kait and Del head to next. At this site, they find that the famous scientist, Niles, still existed in some form within an AI system. He lived around the time of the Pendulum Wars long ago, when wars started over control of the Imulsion resources. Niles had done extensive research on cures for Imulsion poisoning.
It is here that one of the biggest kept secrets is unveiled by Niles, in his admission that Locusts, which the Swarm evolved from, were caused by his genetic experiments in mutating DNA of children suffering from Imulsion poisoning. Additionally, he fused their DNA with that of creatures from the Hollow, the tunnel networks below the planet.Â
Furthermore, it is revealed that Queen Myrrah, whose genetics were used to create the original Locusts, thereby making her the original creator and leader of the Locust Horde, was one of his experiments. She was originally a human. Most importantly, Queen Myrrah was Kait's grandmother.Â
When scientists attempted to take Queen Myrrah's now-deceased daughter, Kait's mother, she turned the Locusts against humans and established their independence. At this point, Kait discovers she is the next queen of the Swarm, and wishes to be separated from the Swarm's hivemind. This would also explain why her father's village was attacked, as the Swarm likely were able to telepathically track her there.Â
Using a dormant Berserker as a conduit called the Matriarch, Niles was able to tap into Kait's mind and severe its connection from the collective hivemind network. However, it does not totally go as planned, given that her consciousness still exists and is archived within the hivemind, even if she is disconnected from it. Before the Matriarch wakes up and destroys Niles, he reveals that he used her mental link into the network to revive her mother, Reyna, in order to provide a new leader for the Swarm, and resume the war that the Locust originally started (the Swarm evolved from the Locust).Â
With the Swarm soon to be led by a revived Reyna, Kait returns to the COG to convince them that the time is more important than ever to bring back the Hammer of Dawn, given that full blown war will be approaching. Baird and his COG counterparts go to Vasgar, where a secret space program exists, and reunites with Garron Paduk, a leader of nomadic desert warriors. As it turns out, they conveniently had a rocket filled with Hammer of Dawn satellites on standby, which COG and the Union of Independent Republics did not know about.
The Swarm Has a New Leader - The Hammer of Dawn is Necessary Now
The Swarm, under their new leadership, have been developing new technology, weapons and organizational skills for war. In response, the team of COG warriors launch the rocket and obtain the mechanisms that can target the laser from space.Â
Confronted by the Kraken, an overly massive Swarm, they have no choice but to escape the vicinity and return to New Ephyra, where they draw up plans for a war campaign that will fully utilize the Hammer of Dawn. But Jinn attempts to have Kait subdued and forcefully hooked up to the hivemind network in order to control the swarm. However, his plans are interrupted as the Swarm attacks New Ephyra in a largescale assault. Before they have a chance to setup the targeting beacons necessary to fully deploy the Hammer of Dawn, the Kraken has them destroyed.Â
Gears 5 Ending
Reyna then makes her presence known and attacks the COG team, which forces Kait to make a tough decision in either choosing to save JD or Del, thereby leaving one of them to be killed. When all hope looks to be lost, the squad's robot companion, Jack, attacks the Kraken by making itself the beacon for which the Hammer of Dawn to fixate its coordinates upon, sacrificing itself along with the Kraken.Â
While the COG team won and survived this battle, barely, Reyna is still out there, potentially setting up the events for the next Gears game. Expect that the next Gears game will resemble an enemy force much more akin to earlier Gears games when the enemies were organized more similarly to a conventional army waging war against humans, with a sense of command-structure and centralization. If the Swarm resembled more of a guerilla army living in the fringes, expect them to evolve once again into becoming a civilization once again, similar to the Locust before them.
It is not yet known if there is a sequel to Gears 5 in development.