Gears 5 Dethrones Fortnite As The Most Played Game On Xbox One

Microsoft has a late-gen hit on its hands with Gears 5, a game that many are calling a return to form for the series, if not its best installment yet, depending on who you ask. Despite that we’re heading into a busy fall release season (Borderlands 3 launches today), the popularity of Gears 5 plus its prominent place in Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass means that it has done the impossible, it has dethroned Fortnite.

Fortnite has been on the top of the most played Xbox games list for at least a year now, being A) free and B) extremely popular, but now at long last, Gears 5 has come along and knocked it down to #2. Gears is not technically free, at the very least you need the Xbox Game Pass to play it, but at this point I feel like most Xbox owners are understanding that if you do own an XB1, the Game Pass is practically mandatory because of the value it offers.

Gears 5, meanwhile, is being celebrated as a big win for Microsoft and Xbox in way that Gears 4 wasn’t. Gears 4 was fine, but Gears 5, both visually and in terms of storytelling is a step beyond the last game, and depending on your opinion, the last few games, even if its Metascore is a touch lower than the past 90+ entries.

I personally loved the Gears 5 campaign, minus one or two aspects at the end, but I am happy to see Gears return as a relevant series again, and this is what I’m hoping 343 can do with Halo Infinite, making the series feel deeply impressive again. But we have a whole year to wait to see how that plays out.

How long will Gears 5 stay on top? We’ll see, but the fact that it hit number one at all against Fortnite is impressive and a sign of the times.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/09/12/gears-5-finally-dethrones-fortnite-as-the-most-played-game-on-xbox-one/#779c013c65ec

Not bad! It seems Game pass is really working for MS cos to dethrone Fortnite is not an easy thing. Anyway I haven't yet played the story but the multiplayer is cool. Not my favourite in the series but still cool. People were asking where is the hype for Gears 5, well I guess here's your answer!

Nice. Don’t have the game myself yet but from what I’ve seen it looks great so really looking forward to playing myself soon.

It didn't last long though. Fortnite's already back on top.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox

But those free-to-$2 Game Pass subs sweetened the deal for sure.

Really good game from what I've played so far.

Some of the reviews are good, may pick it up when on sale.

I hope people really like the games as a service model.

That's temporary. For example, Uncharted 4 probably topped Overwatch on PS4 when it came out for a moment. Overwatch of course had more players for way longer. It's hardly article-worthy, unless one is promoting their material.

This is LOL worthy news. So 10,000 people go from playing fortnite on Xbone to 10,000 playing gears 5 for like a day and Microsoft brags about it.

Meanwhile on PS4, you got like 50 million people playing Fortnite.

Seriously, what’s the actual numbers of people playing in Xbone? Can’t be that high since the console is dead and sold poorly.

This seems to be Forbes quoting the "Most Played Games" list, as opposed to MS bragging...

Your bias is showing.