The Gears of War announcement will also be “awesome,” says Epic Games’ design director.
Epic’s CliffyB, more properly known as Cliff Bleszinski, has teased an upcoming announcement about the Gears of War series in a short promo video for the Spike Videogame Awards taking place on December 11th.
The video is a mix of real-life Bleszinski, cinematic cutscene and gameplay footage. Bleszinksi introduces himself, and then a voice-over pipes up, warning people not to miss the Gears of War announcement that will have “everyone talking,” at the Spike VGAs. Bleszinski echoes the sentiment, saying that what Epic has to show will be “awesome,” and not what people are expecting.
Obviously Bleszinski doesn’t give any clues about what the announcement could be, but it could have something to do with the rumor that surfaced a couple of weeks ago about the Gears of War series was coming to Kinect. At the time, Bleszinski Tweeted that Gears of War 3 wouldn’t have Kinect support, but he never specifies that the announcement would be Gears 3, instead saying just “Gears of War.” It’s not the most compelling evidence admittedly, but it’s safe to say that it would qualify as something that people wouldn’t expect, and would get them talking.
The announcement of a Kinect Gears at the Spike VGAs would also fit pretty well with Microsoft’s marketing strategy for the device. When it wanted to get casual gamers and families buying Kinect, it got it on shows like Oprah and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Now, if it’s trying to get core gamers to buy Kinect, taking advantage of an award show that a lot of them will be watching would be par for the course.
Of course, this is all just speculation. Bleszinski might never specify that he’s talking about Gears of War 3, but the cinematic that proceeds the gameplay footage in the video is part of the reveal trailer for the game that was shown back in April. It’s just as likely – and in fact would be a far simpler explanation – that there’s some nifty new gameplay mechanic that Epic will be showing off, and these rumors of a Kinect Gears of War will be exposed as unfounded and ultimately false.
Source: CVG
Published: Nov 30, 2010 12:43 pm