Gears 5 is losing its map builder, but all players will get the achievements

Gears 5 introduced a map builder as part of its Escape mode, allowing players to create their own cooperative missions. The builder was updated a few times over the years, but now it’s going away. Thankfully, developer The Coalition isn’t leaving fans high and dry.

The news comes from the Gears of War Twitter account. “PSA: we’re removing [the] Gears 5 map builder and unlocking its achievements for all players as the team focus on future projects,” it reads. Even if you never dabbled in the custom mode yourself, you’ll automatically get the associated achievements — they’d be inaccessible otherwise. Additionally, anyone who already earned the builder’s pair of achievements will receive 10,000 coins, which can be spent on a number of items in the in-game store. This all comes with today’s title update, according to a followup tweet. Install it, reboot, and your compensation prizes should be awarded.

The account isn’t responding to anyone questioning the removal, but the reason is given in the announcement. We don’t know what The Coalition’s “future projects” entail, but it already released one game between Gears 5 and now: Gears Tactics came to PC and Xbox in 2020. That was two years ago, so we’ll likely hear something soon about the studio’s next project. The team may also be working on compatibility issues with Gears 5 to some degree. It’s one of a few Xbox games that don’t work on Steam Deck due to its anti-cheat implementation.