Characters — Bravo Squad & Beyond

E-Day's character work starts from a simple premise: in 2006 we met Marcus and Dom as legends. E-Day catches them as soldiers who've never seen anything like what's coming — "you only see what they see and learn what they learn."

Bravo Squad (all four playable)

Marcus Fenix

• War hero of the Pendulum Wars, freshly home; connected to Dom by service and their shared love of the late Carlos Santiago
• Voiced by John DiMaggio, reprising the role
• Younger, more vulnerable than the trilogy's Marcus — the game's armorless design says it visually

Dominic Santiago

• Grieving his older brother Carlos, killed in the war; the wound that keeps him and Marcus "distant"
• Voiced by Carlos Ferro, reprising the role
• The story is as much his as Marcus's — the brotherhood's origin is the campaign's spine

Mags Carter

• A former Gear — dishonorably discharged — now working at Kalona's Imulsion refinery
• A Kalona local, which matters: "Marcus and Dom are not from the city"
• Voiced by Elizabeth Ludlow

Lucas Reyes

• A young cadet and communications officer who's never seen the front lines despite wanting nothing more
• The other Kalona local in the squad
• Voiced by Jake Ryan Lozano

The design rule from art director Aryan Hanbeck: the four aren't "four versions of Marcus and Dom." "Marcus and Dom sit in the front, Mags and Lucas sit in the back. Different roles, but all important to the journey."

Allies & Figures of Kalona

Tai Kaliso

• The fan-favorite from Gears of War 2 and the comics returns, played by Maateiwarangi Heta-Morris — a New Zealand bench-press record holder. Fawcette: "The casting search was pretty short. He's a living Tai."

The Mayor and the Colonel

• Two civilian/military figureheads of Kalona "at odds with each other while we're fighting the Locust" — part of the larger brotherhood the Direct promised: soldiers with their own stories crossing paths through the city

The Locust Side

Vraahk

• Main antagonist — a blight commander injured in the Lambent War, sent to raze Kalona; debuted in the Gamescom story trailer
• Elite guard: the Scorched Legion
• Full profile in /gameplay/enemies.html

The Bonding Moment

The squad forms in the game's defining image: when the road opens and Wretches pour out, four near-strangers in plain clothes turn toward the danger instead of away from it.

"There's a bonding moment before they've even met, where they all have a shared value, a shared loyalty, and they all know exactly what to do." — Matt Searcy