Lest anyone worry about the lack of any further Gears of Wars games coming in the future, Cliff Bleszinski, lead developer on Gears, verified at the GDC that there will be a sequel to Gears of War–surprise, surprise. The first news about a possible sequel was mentioned last year when Microsoft exec Jeff Bell let the cat out of the bag in an interview with GameDaily. "Gears of War is a popular culture phenomenon in the making. The goal of this ad [campaign] is to establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy. The intention is to create emotional connection with him that is lacking in typical third-person action title marketing."
Trilogy? Whether Bell slipped up on announcing this prematurely last November is uncertain, but to all Gear-heads around the world, this is great news. This is by no means surprising to anyone; just look at the sales numbers–it was bound to happen. During GDC, Bleszinski also gave his take on how Epic came up with the idea Gears and other behind the scenes tidbits.
Bleszinski said that the concept for Gears was actually drawn from the best parts of several of his favorite games–Resident Evil 4, Bionic Commando, and kill.switch. Each game brought a certain style regarding gameplay, functionality, or style to Gears. He said that several game ideas were excluded from the game, such as a squad command feature that would have allowed Fenix to direct orders to his team members, a monetary system that would allow gamers to use cash they would find at battle sites to buy new weapons and a suicide mode where members of the team would commit suicide if the battle looked as though it would be lost.
Fortunately, these modes were not included in the final Gears of War title as it probably would have slowed down or taken away from the intensity of the game. Hopefully, the next two (plus?) installments of Gears won’t have too many gimmicky additions in an attempt to make the game "better." The old saying that goes, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," may be some very good advice to Epic Games.
