The story starts with a tweet from Xbox Game Pass. The tweet goes like: ”hear us out, ok” and attaches a photo. The photo is… not to put too fine a point on it, a man’s face, more or less, in an extreme condition of squeezing and distortion, encased in what looks like a white bowl or shell. It’s weird. It’s really weird. But, of course, gamers are gamers and they won’t just pass the tweet through. The answers and the discussion were overflowing with guesses, jokes, and a considerable amount of confusion revolving around one iconic character: Augustus “Cole Train” Cole from Gears of War.
The altercation of the picture is indubitably a very strange photoshop. It is Cole’s face, his characteristic bandana and piercing look, but it has been altered to fit perfectly within this sphere of roundness and bowl-like space. The Xbox Game Pass account on Twitter gave no context, no hashtag, no explanation; just ‘hear us out.’ Which, as one user by the name of streetcredgta pointed out, is always a dubious phrase. “A situation when I hear ‘hear us out’ I always comprehend it ends with ‘trust me bro’ and an emptied Maze Bank account,” they joked, referring to the notorious money-draining activities in GTA Online. Another user, IorwuesePac, agreed that this phrase usually prefaces the justification of “the wildest purchase known to Los Santos.”
But the gamers did not accept the mystery and instantly dived into the guessing game. The overwhelming majority concluded? “Cole in a bowl.” A lot of responses simply stated that. “Cole in a bowl lol,” was the comment from QueenBeezzy. “Cole Train in a Bowl dude,” was the proclamation from TheHoneyG. “Cole in a bowl ftw,” was Jason Evans’ contribution. It became something like a mantra. Some of them used their imagination: “Cole in a seashell?” was the question from YellingMadman. “Hell in a shell?” was the implication of NotDarkLight93. “Fella in a shella,” was LovelyXboxGamer’s suggestion. It was pure, untainted, meme-device chaos!
And, of course, you can’t talk about Cole without the excitement. User big_mikesgaming came with the whole Cole Train vibe, demanding, “THE COLE TRAIN RUNS ON WHOLE GRAIN BABY! WOOOOOOOOOHHH!!” That kind of passionate and loud reaction is what makes the Gears community so easily recognizable. Even a gamer who admitted to never having played Gears, Ricktofen, gave a guess: “Never played this game, but I’m guessing it’s Joel in the bowl.” You’re close but not quite right—wrong franchise, buddy!
Of course, not every response dealt with the silly image. This is an Xbox Game Pass tweet, hence the talk was bound to zoom in on… Subscription Prices. A user going by the name of Ade1weeman went off on the service referring to it as “an absolute scandal” due to the £23 fee in the UK coupled with the high electricity charges. This set off a mini-thred in which ESkamma pointed that you could get it for £32 for three months and told the user to “stop crying now.” Another user, BlueCheckDenied, described downgrading from Ultimate to Essentials due to the price rise. It is the very typical case of hype mixed with immediate, real-world gamer complaints all in one place.
But what does it mean? Is it a clue about something? A new Gears of War game? A freaky piece of merchandise? Just social media clerks enjoying themselves on Thursday? One user, Retard589, went straight to the point: “When is the new gears coming Xbox?” That’s the million-dollar question. The Gears franchise has been mute since Gears 5 and its Hivebusters expansion. Players are longing for a sign, and a cryptic, meme-y tweet from the official Game Pass account will make them speculate a lot. Could “Cole in a bowl” suggest a remastered collection? A new skin for the character? Or is it just a dumb, funny image with no deeper meaning? Considering the current state of marketing, it could be either.
Adding to the Twitter debate was the usual gamer suspicion. User GAMEBORO commented with a GIF of someone looking skeptical, writing “I’m listening but already skeptical.” And Scottishcelts criticized today’s AAA games suggesting this would lead to “another release that’s broken and buggy and needs 6 months of updates.” The atmosphere was a perfect mix of excitement, confusion, and cynical humor.
So, what could be the result? Xbox Game Pass succeeded in making the whole world talk. For a brief period, everyone was on the same timeline trying to solve a completely nonsensical riddle. It created a lot of buzz, and for those on other platforms like PlayStation, it was a reminder of the unique hype cycles in gaming.
