The debut trailer for Gears of War: E-Day turned a lot of heads. Microsoft noted in that trailer that everything we saw was in-engine footage. However, it appears that the trailer was not rendered in real-time.

As a spokesperson from The Coalition told GameSpot, the Gears of War: E-Day trailer was not rendered in real-time. Although it used in-game models, textures and environments, it was not in real-time.

“The Gears of War: E-Day trailer was made in collaboration across The Coalition, Blur Studios and GNet developed using in-game models, textures and environments–all captured in Unreal Engine 5. It was not captured in real time as some have suggested.”

In other words, what we saw was pre-rendered footage, something that even high-end PCs may not be able to match.

To be honest, I find this trend of “pre-rendered trailers” pointless, stupid and misleading. In the past, in-engine trailers were in real-time. And that was the point of them. Yes, they weren’t representative of the quality of a game, but they could at least give us an idea of what the engine could do in real-time. However, that’s not the case with GoW: E-Day.

This reminds me of the pre-rendered barrel videos for the first Crysis game. Those videos were made in CRYENGINE and showed amazing physics effects. In their pre-rendered form, they looked smooth. However, in real-time, those videos were running at 1-4fps. So, they were kind of pointless really.

To me, there is no difference between a CG trailer and a pre-rendered in-engine trailer. Because, in a pre-rendered in-engine trailer, you can even use Path Tracing to great effects. Since the trailer for GoW was pre-rendered, it also makes you wonder how many other “in-engine” trailers from that show were pre-rendered.

Gears of War: E-Day takes place fourteen years before Gears of War. War heroes Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago return home to face a new nightmare: the Locust Horde. These subterranean monsters, grotesque and relentless, erupt from below, laying siege on humanity itself.

As I’ve already said, GoW: E-Day won’t be an open-world game. Instead, it’s going to be an entirely linear game. That’s coming straight from the mouth of the game’s director, Nicole Fawcette. And, to be honest, I’m glad the game won’t chase the open-world trend. Let the devs tell a compelling linear story instead.

Finally, there is no ETA on when Gears of War: E-Day will come out.

Stay tuned for more!