Years ago, the Locust Horde gathered under every major
city and launched a surprise attack. Once thought
fictional boogeymen, the Horde are frighteningly real
and stronger than anyone had imagined.
On Emergence Day, untold masses perished, and
countless more died in the days that followed. Rather
than allow the Horde to keep the spoils of their
aggression, humans used chemical weapons and orbital
particle beams to neutralize them, along with the
cities and bases they controlled.
With most urban centers and military installations
rubble, the human survivors gathered on Jacinto
Plateau, whose solid granite strata could not be
easily penetrated. When the Horde breached the
plateau’s defenses, Marcus Fenix defied orders to
save his father at East Barricade Academy ... but he
was too late. Marcus was subsequently charged with
dereliction of duty and sentenced to 40 years in
Jacinto Maximum Security Penitentiary.
Now, the Horde have overrun the penitentiary.
One of the most common questions I’m
asked as a game developer is, “What
makes a next-generation game?” Is
it graphics? Better physics and AI?
New controls?
I played a game of paintball a
while back. While crouched in the
woods with high-powered spheres
splattering above my head, I had a
hint of what it might be to be in an actual firefight.
I found the experience rather ... painful.
Perhaps it was then that I thought about how most
shooters play. They’re not like real firefights. Circle
strafing, jumping around -- these elements have felt
alien to me for the last few years. For example, take
the use of cover. Before we started GEARS OF WAR®,
we saw other games with cover in them. Our question
was, “How are we going to make hiding behind a wall
interesting?” Answer: “Make it real.”
Next-generation games are about doing a better job
with what we’re given to work with. How can we use
the camera to immerse you more in the narrative? Who
are you fighting, and why should you care? How do we
use context sensitivity to allow you to do all sorts
of cool moves and, in general, switch between feeling
frightened and being a badass?
So yes, GEARS has great graphics, AI, and physics. We
knew we could do that. But more important, we feel we
gave it a real soul. Soldiers with whom you fight an
abhorrent foe. A world you can lose yourself in for
hours on end ... and a gun with a CHAINSAW attached
to it.
Enjoy, and remember -- TAKE COVER!
-- CliffyB
Lead Designer
Epic Games, Inc.