Details on Gears 5 Escape Mode's Story and New Characters

By Miranda Sanchez

Gears 5’s Escape is the newest game mode in the franchise, and it comes with a whole new side story. Three new characters are on a suicide mission to help rid Swarm hives from Sera, and though their story doesn’t directly impact the mode, it is an interesting bit of worldbuilding that enriches the Gears universe further.

Lahni, Keegan, and Mac are Hivebusters. As we see in Escape’s gameplay, their mission is to get caught by Snatchers to infiltrate the heart of a hive, plant a venom bomb, then escape as the hive dies. Though there are some in-game details about the Hivebuster, including banter between them while you’re playing through Escape, the best way to learn about their story is through the new Gears of War: Hivebusters comic.

The Hivebusters comic is written by Kurtis J. Wiebe, and he’s no stranger to the Gears universe. He killed a Carmine and put Raam in the spotlight in his comic Gears of War: Rise of Raam. He helped shape the characters’ story we see in the new mode.

“One of the things that [The Coalition’s] Rod Ferguson told me when he brought me on is that they wanted to do this really awesome, exciting new game mode. [The Coalition] wanted to ground it in an interesting story because they were bringing in three new characters,” Wiebe said. “They wanted to make a distinct and have a different voice for it. So, they brought me on to write out these characters that they had done some design work for. We have Keegan, Lahni, and Mac, and they all come from different backgrounds. I came in to flush out those characters, give them some personality and some drive as to why they’re doing what is essentially a crazy suicide mission.”

The Hivebusters are part of a special group called Team Scorpio. They were tasked with the suicide mission of attempting to exterminate a Swarm hive from the inside. Each character is bound to this mission with different expectations, though they were all only required to complete this one run. After their mission is successful, however, they choose to stay together for more assignments. Team Scorpio’s story is still being explored in the Gears of War: Hivebuster comics, but in the meantime, Wiebe gave us the backstory on each of the characters to explain their motivations.

Lahni

Lahni servers as Scorpio’s scout and she comes to Team Scorpio with experience as the second oldest of the crew. Wiebe describes her as an adrenaline junkie which plays into how her ultimate gets her up close and personal to her enemies.

“This is a new character idea that is something that, Coalition was awesome working with me on the concept for. Lahni comes from a group called the Brash Brigade,” Wiebe said. “It’s not established in the lore as of yet, but the idea is that after the Locust War ended, there were still pockets left of locust cells that existed and were still going to present a problem. She was a highly trained special ops soldier at the age of 19 who went in with the Brash Brigade and they would clean up these pockets that still existed unbeknownst to the greater population of Sera. She was imprisoned for a dangerous action that she took to protect her squad, but ended up [causing] the death of one of her senior officers. So, she was imprisoned for her actions. She’s been given an opportunity to get out of prison; do this mission and should she succeed at the mission, she will be put back with her Brash Brigade. That’s what’s motivating her.”

The Coalition Studio Head Rod Fergusson confirmed that Lahni is a Tai Kaliso’s cousin.

Keegan

Keegan is the oldest of the group and he fills the support role. Wiebe said is kind of a fatherly figure of the group. His active ability allows him to give ammo to allies for a few seconds.

“Keegan is a guy that carries a lot of weight on his shoulders,” Wiebe said. “He served with the Onyx Guard but was taken away to protect Prescott back in the day. He feels that he missed the war and all of his brothers and sisters from the Onyx Guard were essentially wiped out during the war. Now, he’s been given this opportunity. He sees it as an opportunity to pay them homage and to do right by them in his mind. So, that is why he’s there doing this mission as kind of a last stab in his old age to do something that matters in his opinion.”

Mac

Mac is the youngest of Team Scorpio and comes in with the least experience. He serves as the tank of the group and uses a shield for his ultimate ability.

“[Mac] was raised after the war. He has no connections to the Cog. Essentially, an outsider that lived just outside of society with the rest of his family and all the other families that moved out to this place. Mac, his story is a bit of a secret and I don’t want to go to too many of the details because it’s revealed in the comic book series,” Wiebe said. “Essentially, he is motivated by revenge and for him, it is really a suicide mission. He doesn’t expect to survive, but he wants to make an impact and just get as much revenge as he possibly can before he passes. His story is actually quite a sad one.”

Team Scorpio’s journey will continue to play out over the course of the summer as the Gears of War: Hivebuster comics are released. In addition to giving greater context to these characters through the comic, Wiebe is also using the comics to flesh out some details about the Swarm.

“What I really love about writing for Gears is that there’s a really big universe that The Coalition, and Rod [Fergusson] in particular, have been really great with giving me a lot of freedom and a lot of ideas that I have,” Wiebe said. “In the comic book, you can see that the very opening of the few pages is this really strange, bizarre, almost dream space where it looks like Lahni, Keegan, and Mac can interact with each other’s dreams and memories. That is all part of a process of being [taken by the] Swam and basically being podded by a snatcher. So, I kind of presented this idea that maybe when they’re under they can walk through each other’s dreams and memories and they just allowed me to roll with it. They are really excited by big ideas like that. There’s so much space for that to grow.”

The Gears of War universe is growing in other ways too. We recently learned that the Gears of War movie will be set in an alternate reality.

Gears 5 is out on September 10. If you haven’t already, be sure to read our hands-on impressions of Escape and check out the rest of our IGN First coverage of Gears 5 that continues all month long.

Miranda Sanchez is an executive editor at IGN. You can chat with her about video games and anime on Twitter.