Bleszinski: Gears Became a Negative Stereotype

Cliff Bleszinski reckons a little bit of Gears of War’s heart got lost in the design process, something he hopes to avoid in the future.

Gears of War, for those of you who live under rocks, is a game about gargantuan hunchbacks shooting aliens, pausing only to shout angrily at each other and grimace. As far as modern video game narratives go, it really doesn’t get more clichéd than that. According to Gears designer, Cliff Bleszinski, some of the game’s more intellectual themes got lost during the design process.

“Gears was always meant to be a lot more Band of Brothers than Predator, and that’s one of the things that, in hindsight, if I could go back and change I would,” he told Penny Arcade. “The characters didn’t need to be huge, although it turned out to be an iconic thing. I never stood in front of the company and said I wanted to see the biggest, most macho motherfuckers you could ever see, that never happened. [The character design] happened completely organically.”

“[Gears] became a negative stereotype in this generation. I want to be smarter about that in the future,” he continued.

While some of you may have set your scoff beams to maximum in response to the idea that Gears was ever supposed to be anything other than a violent, machismo-drenched, teenager-appeasing romp, the series does occasionally hint at a more philosophical underpinning. From the subdued but effective ad-spots, to the way the games themselves juxtapose juvenile violence against architecturally beautiful environments, it’s clear that Gears had something to say, it was just mostly drowned out by the constant gunfire.

“If I were to pass Gears off to another studio, and they came back with a pitch of having a double-edged chainsaw, and the characters are more buff, and now you can pull off someone’s head and shit down their neck, and they had a character that makes Cole look tame… I would look at them and say no, you’re going in the exact wrong direction,” he said. “Gears is always some of that, but I would want to further evolve it in more of a Christopher Nolan way.”

The first person to not post the obvious “we have to go deeper” reference wins my respect.

Source: Penny Arcade