Remember the Gears Of War movie? Anyone? It was originally announced to be in development at the launch ceremony for Gears Of War 4 in 2016. It’s been three years since then with scarcely any details but now we know something new about the upcoming adaptation.

In an interview with IGN, The Coalition studio head Rod Fergusson confirmed that the Gears Of War movie will take place in an alternate reality, hence it will not be part of the game franchise’s story canon.

Fergusson said:

“In order for the movie to be successful, it has to be a great movie first and a Gears movie second.

Basically, the way that we sort of reconciled that was, we said, ‘oh the movie should be an alternate reality. It should not be dependent on the game story, nor should it influence the game story.”

Fergusson further justified the decision by saying that there will now be more room and potential possibilities with what the Gears Of War movie could be, instead of being limited to the games. This will allow the writers to adapt the franchise in a unique way.

He also revealed that all of the non-gaming media related with the Gears Of War franchise, including books and comics, are not canon as well.

“I’ve heard of other franchises who come with this really large story Bible and this really sort of, here are all the rules now go and deal with 700 pages of how you live in our world.

When we did it, we were two pages. I was like, ‘Here’s two pages of thou shall nots and recommendations.’ We want people to have the freedom to have new ideas and to take things differently.”

However, Fergusson reassures fans of the franchise that the Gears Of War movie will still stay true to the games. For example, it will be set on the planet Sera and star certain characters (Marcus Fenix must be one of them, right?).

As of now, we still have no release date, director, or actors attached to the Gears Of War movie. With movies like Detective Pikachu slowly convincing everyone that video game movie adaptations can be better, let’s hope the eventual Gears Of War movie continues that trend.