Gears 5 Enjoys Microsoft’s Best Launch This Generation, With Over Three Million Players in Opening Weekend

Microsoft has announced that Gears 5 has enjoyed the best launch week for a first party Microsoft game across this entire generation. Starting September 6, which is when the game’s early access period began for Ultimate Edition owners and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, across its opening weekend, Gears 5 attracted more than million players.

As per Microsoft, its launch “easily doubles” the figures seen for Gears of War 4’s launch, while also making it the most-played Microsoft first party game in its launch week since Halo 4 came out on the Xbox 360 in 2012. On PC, Gears 5 becomes the biggest launch on Xbox Game Pass on PC in the short time the service has been active so far, while also becoming Microsoft’s best launch on Steam. In total, on PC, Gears 5’s launch has tripled the figures enjoyed by its predecessor on the platform at launch.

According to recent reports even though Gears 5 has seen less-than-stellar packaged sales (at least in the UK, where it debuted below Borderlands 3 in the charts), on Xbox Game Pass, the shooter has been a “mega-hit”. The success is well deserved, too. In our review, we called it Microsoft’s best game this generation, while our technical analysis called it one of the best looking games ever.