The Coalition

The Coalition is a first-party AAA game-development studio within Xbox Game Studios, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The team is the lead developer and custodian of the Gears of War franchise, creating high-fidelity third-person action experiences for Xbox and PC.

Originally established by Microsoft in February 2010 as Zipline Studios, the team subsequently operated as Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver and Black Tusk Studios before adopting its current name in June 2015. The rebrand followed Microsoft’s acquisition of the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games and reflected the studio’s new mandate for the series.

Game development

The studio develops full-cycle games spanning design, narrative and level work, character and environment art, technical animation, cinematic production, audio, quality assurance, optimisation, and software and systems engineering. Its technical work includes real-time motion capture, multiplayer gameplay systems, network architecture, and photorealistic cinematic production.

The Coalition has developed its expertise in Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5, using the technology across franchise work and technical collaborations. It also applies cloud-accelerated shader and build compilation through Microsoft Azure and IncrediBuild.

Selected work

• Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
• Gears of War 4
• Gears 5 and Gears 5: Hivebusters
• Gears Tactics, co-developed with Splash Damage
• Gears Pop!, co-developed with Mediatonic
• The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience, as a technical partner with Epic Games
• Technical co-development support for Halo Infinite

The studio is leading production on Gears of War: E-Day, an origin story for the franchise being developed natively in Unreal Engine 5. Its Vancouver team includes specialists in technical animation, game design, cinematic production, sound engineering, and network architecture.