None of those character plot developments made any sense.
I had just recently given Gears 4 a refresher playthrough prior to starting this and it was like they threw away all the character bonds that were laid out in that game.
So after defecting from the COG in Gears 4 and becoming an enemy of the state, JD and Del are back in the COG like no big deal, and somehow convinced Kait to join and Marcus to come back full time. Already off to a weird start in need of serious backstory.
Then the game, for whatever reason, decides to pull a 180 on JD and make you hate him, for reasons unknown, by dropping a convenient “oh by the way he shot a crowd of protestors one time and it had no relevance to any other part of the story except just now”, so now his love interest whom he shared a special bond with in Gears 4 and his best friend since childhood now immediately hate his guts without a second thought and that’s basically the end for JD’s entire plot development. Just gonna s***can the protagonist and son of Marcus Fenix. Mmmmkay.
Now queue Del, who has basically no personality depth beyond just existing in combat and being the token tech nerd, no chemistry with any character except the one who just left, and no reason to somehow trust Kait, choosing her over JD because the Coalition wants to get rid of JD “just because”, and because you need a co-op partner. So here comes Del going on some personal quality time mission with his best friend’s (ex?) girlfriend, meanwhile JD is inexplicably now pals with the antagonist he just beat up not too long ago. Mmmmkay.
So then the awkward character duo set out for an entire campaign act to discover everything you already knew from Gears 2’s act located in the same exact place, and the player ultimately learns nothing new about Kait’s role in the Swarm/Locust that wasn’t already painfully obvious.
Fast forward and we’re in a desert, and now JD and his inexplicable new friend who is inexplicably not an a-hole anymore show up, but it’s like they were never gone for that entire act because they were briefed on everything. They get the job done, JD expresses genuine guilt, but he’s still unforgiven by his love interest because of off-screen plot devices that apparently weren’t important enough to incorporate into the actual game.
Now we’re in Ephyra, bad stuff going down, the usual for a final Gears act, and at one point the player must choose whether Del or JD dies.
wut
So now we have a MAJOR plot point that is completely up to player decision, and clearly one of these has to be canon in order to move the story forward in Gears 6, which is going to be very weird to say the least.
The whole story was just awkward, uncomfortable, full of odd reasonings for things, and had an unhealthy obsession with hating JD and forcing the Kait/Del thing.