Gears 5 features dozens of pride flags in multiplayer

By Jennifer Locke
published

It's a small but important step.

What you need to know

  • Gears 5 is the latest mainline entry in the series from The Coalition.
  • The game features nearly two dozen pride flags in its multiplayer.
  • It releases today for XGP Ultimate subscribers and September 10th for everyone else.

Here's a heartwarming story to brighten your morning. As people on Twitter are discovering, Gears 5 features dozens of pride flags in its multiplayer. Instead of being limited to the usual rainbow flag, The Coalition went above and beyond what developers normally do — if they do at all — and ensured nearly everyone in the LGBTQ+ community was represented. Because everyone deserves representation.

https://twitter.com/ashiinu/status/1169560679885365248

It's a small gesture, but an incredibly important one for those who want to feel included in the game's community. Banners are displayed behind your character after multiplayer matches if you've earned special commendations, like being the top player in a match, so everyone can see them.

This is a great step for a series that was usually seen as a hypermasculine power fantasy.

Progress

 (opens in new tab)
Gears 5

Wear your pride on your sleeve

Gears 5 is being hailed as one of the greatest Gears games to release, mixing up the formula in new ways to strengthen it more than ever before. And now you can get in on the multiplayer fun with some pride displayed.

Jennifer Locke
Jennifer Locke

Jennifer Locke has been playing video games nearly her entire life, and is very happy Xbox is growing a stronger first-party portfolio. You can find her obsessing over Star Wars and other geeky things on Twitter @JenLocke95.

13 Comments
  • Is this really necessary?
  • Not at all. Just further attempts at forcing our society to conform to an agenda. And, it's working to a degree. There are definitely people who will continue to challenge this stuff, and going by the ratings of Chappelle's new stand up special, plenty of people are sick of it. But, largely, the minds of the youth are being brainwashed, and when they make decisions, don't realize that their thoughts were fed to them. I know this will set some people off, so I'mma just leave it at that.
  • You're beyond delusional of you think this "agenda" is anything other than good if you can even call it that. You're sick and need help lmao it's a flag. And my lord the Chappelle special was quite literally mocking people who get worked up over this stuff like you to your face
  • Is the game itself really necessary? Is any of it necessary?
  • I think it is important that people feel "included" and this probably genuinely does make folks feel some additional level cultural acceptance. However, real progress will have been achieved when people don't feel the need to latch onto these group identities as something that need a token nod in all aspects of social life. Phrases like "everyone deserves representation" sound great, but fall easily when challenged and create unsustainable expectations. I wonder for instance if the writer would be OK with a National Rifle Association flag or if they would fault the developers for not including flags for other identities (recovering alcoholics, police, people diagnosed with bipolar disorder.) Pride has become good money and good public relations and corporations know that.
  • The real question is: why not? What motive could there be for it not to be in the game?
  • This type of "pride" has basically become a form of brainwashing. Pride is for things you earned. Not for things you're born into. You're effectively taking pride in your parent's achievements for having a child, not your own, while demanding more than equality.
  • If anybody ever told me I needed to celebrate my white heritage or my straight cis male sexuality, I'd think they were insane lol
  • Definitely. There is no limit to the types of images that the game would have to support or purposely include in order to cater to what any person wants to consider "pride". What if someone wanted pro abortion flags, anti Trump, pro Bernie, brown pride, etc... If they're going to go out of their way to include these, there has to be an agenda behind it. Do they include a flag for every country in the world, white pride, black pride, Asian pride... People making a decision to want to have relations with another person of the same gender is not an act to be prideful about. Making a decision to change genders isn't either. If somebody wants to associate with that mentality, that's their decision, but calling it pride just makes it so those of us who don't agree are being intolerant and disrespectful. Playing on the meaning of certain words to slide in an agenda. I don't wish harm toward any individual as we're all human and therefore, brothers and sisters. But, sugar coating behaviors and brainwashing the masses just isn't cool.
  • In the case of sexuality and gender identities, it's not about taking pride in things we're born into, it's about making a statement, it's "We exist and we won't hide who we are, no matter what you think or do it doesn't change us and there's nothing wrong with us". That is an important message to all non-straight and non-cis people who on a daily basis have to deal with little (and sometimes big) attacks on who they are. Little by little this kind of thing erodes their self-esteem to the point the suicide rate among LGBT+ people is significantly higher than within cis-straight people.
    That's the point of Pride today.
  • Ahh, comment section, only nine comments in and already you haven't disappointed me, kudos.
  • Heart warming? More like blood curdling scream.
    People were already saying these guys had an agenda putting a woman in the lead role of a hyper masculine game and now they felt the need to do this too right before release? Yeah, right... "No Agenda". And Just to be clear. All the developers from Coalition to Naughty Dog are pushing this nonsense.
  • I don't know about you, but I'd rather be looking at a womans butt for twelve hours, than a mans.