Gears 5 is set to be the next upcoming major Xbox exclusive title to be released, and only the second by developer The Coalition after 2016’s Gears Of War 4. While the franchise has been an Xbox mainstay for years, the gameplay has remained mostly similar with few innovations. That is set to change with the next installment.

In an interview with Kotaku, The Coalition head Rod Fergusson described how Gears 5 will offer bold and meaningful changes to the franchise. Here’s what he said:

• Gears 5 campaign will support three-player co-op.
• Gears 5 campaign won’t just be a “hallway shooter”, as it will feature more choices for the player.
• Cover-based shooting remains the focus of gameplay.
• There will be more options for melee-based combat.
• Combat controls will be slightly tweaked. For example, killing enemies with the chainsaw bayonet will be executed by holding the right bumper button on the controller (instead of the ‘B’ button).
• More focus on targeting enemy weak points and scoring headshots in Gears 5, with the aiming reticle displaying different colors to indicate different situations (white for body shots, red for headshots, and gold when players have done a perfect reload, super-charging their gun).
• Enemies will now have health bars, but these can be turned off.
• Players can lock onto enemies on the lowest difficulty.
• Gears 5 difficulty levels will be as follows, in ascending order: beginner/intermediate/experienced/insane.
• Gears 5 is described as five games in one: Campaign, PvE Horde mode, PvP Versus mode, the new 3-player PvE Escape mode, and a map-builder mode.
• No more Horde mode crossing over into campaign in Gears 5 (like there was in Gears Of War 4).
• PvP Versus mode beta test to launch in mid-July 2019, while Horde mode to be unveiled at Gamescom 2019 in August.

Besides all those new details for Gears 5, Fergusson also admitted that the developer messed up Gears Of War 4‘s ending, which many players ultimately didn’t understand the meaning of. The medallion passed down to Kait Diaz (who will be the main protagonist of Gears 5) by her mother featured a symbol of the enemy aliens, the Locust.

”The ending which was supposed to be this sort of a little bit of a cliffhanger, like ‘Where is this going with Kait’s journey?’ and ‘What does it mean with Kait’s relationship with the enemy?’

That was something we sort of dropped the ball on.

The story we were writing for Gears 5 was really Kait’s journey of discovery.

If you’re going to have a character who’s going to go through something, you want to be that character when you go through it you don’t want to watch it.

I don’t sit and watch Kate go through something traumatic. I want to have it happen to the players so they feel it.”

There you have it, folks. Gears 5 will be new and not just more of the same from the iconic Microsoft exclusive franchise. Gears 5 is slated to release for the Xbox One and PC on 10 September 2019. In the meantime, re-watch the E3 2019 trailer below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IP_EPLfvSo&w=560&h=315]