Windows Central's Jez Corden says Microsoft's auditors pinned $500 million+ on The Coalition across six to seven years, from Gears 5 to E-Day, and that money also helped build Avowed, Hellblade 2, State of Decay 3, the Unreal Engine 5 tech and more. He also says the number may be getting used to justify cuts.
The $500 million number everybody keeps throwing at Gears of War: E-Day just got a lot more context. Windows Central’s Jez Corden published a report this morning, Nov. 2, after what he calls weeks of digging, and his sources say that money paid for a lot more than one Gears game. For the full sales and budget background, check out our main Gears of War: E-Day sales and budget story.
The key facts
- The $500 million is real, but it’s a studio number. Corden says he can confirm Microsoft’s financial auditors attributed “upwards of $500 million to The Coalition between Gears of War 5 and Gears of War: E-Day.” That spans roughly six to seven years, not one game.
- The Coalition worked on other Xbox games. Per Corden’s sources, the studio contributed to Avowed, Hellblade 2, Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, Grounded and Grounded 2, and even the upcoming StarCraft reboot.
- It carried Unreal Engine work for Xbox. The Coalition spent a lot of time with Epic Games on the Matrix Awakens and Alpha Point Unreal Engine 5 showcases. Windows Central says the tools and techniques from those were later used across other first and third-party games between 2020 and 2021.
- A canceled project is in there too. The Coalition worked for over a year and a half on a prototype for Xbox that Windows Central understands was canceled.
- Not everyone inside agrees on the math. Corden says there are “even some internal disagreements over how exactly attribution should be distributed.”
- No closure plan he’s heard of, but layoffs are the worry. Corden says he has “not heard that Xbox is planning to close The Coalition,” but he thinks the figure could be used to justify cuts.
What you need to know
Where the $500 million story came from
The half-a-billion number first came from Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming, and Kotaku’s Ethan Gach later backed it up, with an extra $100 million on top, according to Corden’s report. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier also said in a YouTube video on Oct. 30 that E-Day cost Xbox $500 million and that it “is a real number.” Corden says those earlier reports “were right on the numbers in general.” His point is about what the number actually covers.
What happened at The Coalition from 2020 on
Here’s the timeline Windows Central lays out:
- Early 2020: Rod Fergusson formally left The Coalition. Corden says the transition left the studio in “a bit of a dormant state for a period” while Microsoft figured out what was next, and the pandemic hit development pipelines built for office work.
- 2020 to 2021: The Coalition worked with Epic on the Matrix Awakens and Alpha Point UE5 showcases. That tech went on to other games.
- Same stretch: over a year and a half on an Xbox prototype that got canceled, plus help on Avowed, Hellblade 2, Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, Grounded, Grounded 2 and the StarCraft reboot.
- After that: Mike Crump was locked in as studio head, and E-Day development “began in earnest.”
Gears E-Day’s $500M Tab Has a Twist, and It’s Bigger Than One GameThe Unreal Engine piece
This backs up what former Xbox product manager Derek Reese said on Bluesky, which we covered in our follow-up on where E-Day’s money went. Corden’s report quotes Reese again:
“So much of that cost is The Coalition being on the hook for the Microsoft branch of Unreal and one of the flagship titles. I should know, I tried to get leadership to support a plan to have other studios adopt it and write off the support costs. Same problem with Turn10 and ForzaTech.”
Why it matters right now
Corden ties this to “looming, widely expected layoffs” at Xbox. He says Xbox studios have had an “unclear accounting structure for contributions towards other projects,” and that past and present Xbox studio heads told him they didn’t have clarity on how their work for Game Pass fed back into their own costs.
His biggest line: “I can’t help but feel like the ‘$500 million’ figure being shared around internally is being used to justify potential cuts, layoffs, or worse, a studio closure targeting The Coalition.” Again, he’s clear that he has not heard of a plan to close the studio.
Corden also points out that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said over the summer that Xbox had to become “sustainable,” while saying Microsoft will “always” invest in gaming.
What Jez Corden said on X
Corden shared the report on X this morning, saying “Microsoft’s spreadsheets seem to be seeding a narrative of wastefulness that doesn’t gel with the reality per our sources.”
In a follow-up post he added that E-Day “was still costly even with the mitigating information,” and that he hopes Xbox’s leaders “opt for refocusing the studio over cuts.”
What should Xbox do with The Coalition?
Vote and see what other Xbox fans think.
Like having a say? Get OnPoint Weekly or argue it out on Discord.
What’s still unknown
- Microsoft hasn’t commented on the budget or broken down The Coalition’s costs.
- How much of the $500 million+ was E-Day itself versus engine work, other games and the canceled prototype isn’t public.
- Nothing official has been announced about layoffs at The Coalition.
OnPoint’s take: This is the story we’ve been saying all along. The Coalition isn’t just “the Gears studio.” It’s the team that helped build the Unreal Engine 5 foundation a bunch of Xbox games stand on, and it put work into Avowed, Hellblade 2, State of Decay 3 and more. Booking all of that on E-Day and then calling the game a money pit is bad math, period. E-Day reviewed great, it’s a true Xbox exclusive, and Gears has a TV show and a movie coming. You don’t cut the studio that holds up the tech for half your lineup. Xbox, refocus The Coalition, don’t gut it. That’s the W here.
Image: The Coalition logo / OnPoint 4 Gamers graphic
Sources
- Windows Central, Jez Corden, “Gears of War: E-Day’s ‘$500 million budget’ story oversimplifies The Coalition’s contribution to Xbox” (Nov 2, 2026)
- Jez Corden on X (Nov 2, 2026)
- Jez Corden on X, follow-up (Nov 2, 2026)
- Derek Reese on Bluesky
- Epic Games / GDC 2021, The Making of “Alpha Point”
- OnPoint 4 Gamers, main E-Day sales and budget story
