SAN FRANCISCO, CA–When it comes to this Christmas, Epic Games‘ “Gears of War 2” should sell a lot of copies, and potentially a lot of hardware, for publisher Microsoft. The first “Gears of War” sci-fi shooting game debuted in 2006 and sold more than five million copies, giving Microsoft a critical new franchise in the console war. With the new game now complete, Cliff Belszinski, lead design director at Epic Games, was on hand to discuss his sequel as game journalists played Gears of War 2 for three days straight at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf ballroom.
VB: How challenging was it to live up to the lofty expectations gamers have with this sequel?
CB: I think we lived up to the expectations for the first game and I think the hype train is in full effect again. I hope we live up to the expectations for this game. At the same time, there are some people who are out there wondering if it’s just Gears 1.5, but if you really look at everything that’s in there, it’s very much Gears 2. We didn’t rehash the krill, we’re not rehashing the berserker. There’s so many things we’re putting into the game. The campaign is far more robust and longer and there are definitely more twists and turns and water cooler moments around every single corner. That’s the game we set out to build. It’s so hard to do an interview when I’m watching people getting pummeled (in the game) in the background.
VB: There were those non-core gamers who found the original Gears challenging. How important was the casual gamer this time around?
CB: In the campaign for players to be able to play on different difficulties — one player can play on casual, the other can play on hardcore — the mantra was that we couldn’t make the Casual difficulty easy enough. I can try to die when I play in casual but I have to rub up against Locusts and yell, “Come on, kill me!” And that’s okay because you have no idea how bad a casual gamer can truly be at the game. We want them to play the game and be sucked into the universe and finish the game. We want them to potentially finish with a friend and become a fan of the characters and the setting. Everyone’s all scared of this casual gaming boom and I say, “Bring it on!” We want them to play Gears.
VB: With Gears and Unreal Tournament tagged as mature-rated franchises, would you like to make a game franchise open to the Teen or Everyone audiences one day?
CB: Sure, maybe somewhere down the line. But I have the feeling I’m going to be in the hardcore, sci-fi head space for a while. I have plenty of ideas for different universes. I did do Jazz Jackrabbit a long time ago, so who knows what will happen. We won’t be getting around to do Wii games any time soon.
VB: How has your promotion at Epic since the original game shipped changed your duties at the company?
CB: Not only is it my job to make sure Gears 2 is great but I also have to work with our partners at Chair Entertainment who did the wonderful game Undertow as well as People Can Fly, who are working with the new IP for EA. I have to field phone calls about the movie. I also work with (Epic President) Mike (Capps) and (Gears 2 Producer) Rod (Ferguson) with the universe of Gears with things like what the names of the choppers are that they’re putting into the novel and who the character of Josh is in the graphic novel. It’s really a challenging thing to manage it all but it’s also incredibly compelling. There’s also other stuff that’s going on that we haven’t announced that’s taking up my time. But it’s important to find time to sleep and take the dog out.
VB: What are your thoughts on the trend in gaming of offering consumers the ability to create user-generated content through games like Spore and LittleBigPlanet?
CB: I think you’re going to see it streamlined and easier to use. The PC mod community has been hobbyist and I think will remain hobbyist. Due to the limitations of the console with the controllers, games like LittleBigPlanet has to be more basic and easy to use. Ultimately, what you wind up seeing is a shift from a game being a game experience to a platform where people create and share content amongst themselves and the product has a life of its own.
VB: Epic has offered PC game tools to gamers from its inception. Are you embracing user-generated content with your console games moving forward?
CB: We have a little of that in Gears 2 with the sense of community, allowing people to take their screenshots and tag them. We’re going to have captioning contests and cool things like that. Halo did a great job with that, with Forge. I think it does a great job of keeping people playing your game, which at the end of the day is a good thing.