Last week it was announced that Gears 5 would not feature any depictions of smoking. This was reported to be the result of a joint agreement between game developer The Coalition and the Truth Initiative, the latter of which is known for its awareness-building messages regarding tobacco. While it seemed as if this was a ‘win’ for the Truth Initiative and that their actions directly led to the removal of smoking from Gears 5, this actually wasn’t the case, according to The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson.

Since the initial news broke, Fergusson spoke further about why Gears 5 would not depict any acts of smoking. “Just to clarify, I’ve always been anti-smoking and have pushed back on having it in Gears since day 1,” Fergusson said in a recent tweet.

There was no smoking to remove from Gears 4 or 5 because there never was any smoking to begin with. And as long as I’m in control, there never will be. Sorry for the confusion.”

Fergusson then goes further to state that the reason why he has always pushed to keep smoking out of the games is due to his father dying of a heart attack at age 38 (Rod was 4), as well as other friends to lung cancer.

My dad smoked. He died of a heart attack at age 38. I was 4.

— Rod Fergusson (@GearsViking) July 13, 2019

Simply because I didn’t want to glamorize something that is addictive and kill you. Wasn’t trying to me any moral police, just reflecting my beliefs after losing friends to lung cancer. If you had the ability to create a world, what would you change?

— Rod Fergusson (@GearsViking) July 12, 2019

So, in actuality it seems as if the discussions between Truth and The Coalition were more about keeping the smoking references out of Gears 5, rather than having an actual need to remove them. Either way, both sides did a great job, and hopefully other developers will follow suit.

Gears 5 launches for PC and Xbox One on September 10, 2019.

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