Polish developer People Can Fly has been enlisted to help The Coalition on Gears of War: E-Day.The studio previously developed Gears of War: Judgement and assisted with the first three Gears games. In the announcement, CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski called it "a privilege and an exciting opportunity" to return to the franchise. "We are deeply grateful for our partners trust and support on this journey."Mike Crump, studio head for The Coalition, similarly called it a pleasure to "partner with the talented folks at People Can Fly who have been a part of our franchises legacy for so long."This provides some stability to People Can Fly, which had a tumultuous 2024. After laying off 30 employees in January and scrapping one of its unannounced projects in April, it ended the year pausing development on a separate project and cutting another 120 workers.In June 2023, People Can Fly announced it'd entered a work-for-hire deal with Microsoft based on one of its properties. At the time, it said Microsoft would be funding the then-unknown project, which was said to be budgeted between $30 million and $50 million.It takes two (or more) to develop a gameThe Coalition has previously juggled co-developer duties with its own projects. Many of these collaborations have been Gears-related: it helped Splash Damage on 2020's strategy spinoff Gears Tactics and Mediatonic on Gears Pop! for mobile platforms.Outside of the Gears series, it previously teamed up with 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) on Halo Infinite, and with Epic Games on The Matrix Awakens. Gears of War: E-Day is the first game Coalition has led development on since Gears 5 back in 2019.The upcoming Gears prequel isn't the only major Xbox game with a high-profile co-development partnership: Crystal Dynamics has been helping The Initiative on the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot, and Eidos Montreal is supporting the development of Playground Games' Fable. Certain Affinity, while not a first-party Microsoft studio, also has a long history of helping on the Halo games.For People Can Fly, co-developing E-Day gives it another reprieve. In 2014, co-founder Adrian Chmielarz revealed the team helping with the PC port for the first Gears "saved the studio," and led to it taking the reigns on Judgement.