GamePro talks Gears of War 2 storyline with Epic (page 2 of 2)

Dave Rudden, GamePro: So does the newly-announced comic tie into Gears of War 2, or is it a bridge between the two games?

Mike Capps, President of Epic: We haven't settled down what we're doing for the first miniseries, but it'll likely be introductory. There's six months between Gears 1 and 2, and the comic seems like the best place to tell the story of what's happening in that timeframe, and kind of lead into Gears 2. It's an exciting media to me, and not just because I'm a comic book nerd and they let me in for free [to NY Comic Con] but also because we can do things you can't do in videogames. You know, I can't have 500 helicopters flying in the air or 30 Berserkers on screen. We're doing a much more epic scale with Gears 2, but I can do even more with the comic book space, and I'm excited about that. We're doing a much more epic scale with Gears 2, but I can do even more with the comic book space, and I'm excited about that.

We're doing a much more epic scale with Gears 2, but I can do even more with the comic book space, and I'm excited about that.

Rudden: Do you know when they'll release the comics?

Capps: I don't think we've put a date on it, but obviously, I'd love to get that done in time to match Gears 2 coming out.

Rudden: It's been said that Gears 2 will be more emotional than Gears 1--how will you accomplish that?

Capps: It's really challenging for us with our audience, which is a mix of people who really wanted more story, and ADD kids who just want to plow through, and keeping them both happy is difficult. It's always been a problem for us in videogames, when we have to lean on our archetype, because if you don't. we don't have enough screen time for characters talking to get across who they are, so we have character archetypes, for better or worse. This time since you know who all the main characters are, you can dig a little bit deeper into them, and we've built a bit more of the story in advance in this one. Gears was a rough idea of a story and a lot of environments we built, and then we went and fit the story in. This time, we had a lot more of the scripts and story plotted out before the levels were locked down. In the end, the levels have to win in Gears because it's 10 man years per level, and rewriting a script to match a level is how many seconds? The spaces will always win, but we've been able to get a lot more accomplished, a lot more subtlety with the story, which we didn't do so much in Gears 1, and it comes from having the time--we started Gears 2 pretty early with a bigger team and a lot more focus on the writing.

Rudden: On the topic of characters, someone from Crystal Dynamics criticized the character of Cole Train, and I was wondering what your toughts were.

Capps: I got a kick out of reading all the comments on the article. They were saying "So Crystal Dynamics is calling people out for stereotyping?" I was a little frustrated that someone would say we were racially stereotyping a character. We have quite a diverse mix of people working on Gears, and maybe 20% of the character's lines was stuff we wrote, and the rest is Rasta. That's what he is like. I don't know if you've ever seen "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker," but that's the way he talks. He's hilarious, he's really into the part, but a lot of the characterization comes directly from him. I don't know. A strong, dependable guy who laughs in the face of danger. If that's a bad stereotype for African-Americans, I don't know...

A strong, dependable guy who laughs in the face of danger. If that's a bad stereotype for African-Americans, I don't know...

Rudden: How will the Pendulum Wars and the Locust race be more defined in Gears 2?

Capps: Well, we'll explain a little more in Gears 2 about why they're doing what they're doing, but that's a space we're going to explore a bit with the first novel, that we want to basically tell the story of the Pendulum Wars and how Marcus Fenix and Dom and all those guys met. We won't talk about that much in Gears 2, we'll try to jump right in to saving humanity.

Rudden: Most action sequels seem to set up the final chapter of a trilogy. Is that what you're trying to do with Gears 2?

Capps: No. That sucks when number two is just a bridge to number 3. We've got a plan of what we might do later in the universe, but no, this is not setting up the second-to-last bad guy for the final bad guy. That would require us to do a lot more planning an preparation. We've just been focused on Gears 2. If Gears 2 isn't great, then people aren't going want a Gears 3 anyway, so it's not a bridge. That's what the comic books and novels do for us. If we want to bridge between story plotlines, we can use external licensed properties for that.

If Gears 2 isn't great, then people aren't going want a Gears 3 anyway, so it's not a bridge.

Rudden: How much of a role will the Locust Queen play in Gears 2?

Capps: Oh, I can't answer that for you, I'm sorry.

Rudden: Will we at least get to see her?

Capps: You will learn a lot more about the Locust Queen in this one.

Rudden: Thanks very much for your time.

Comments [46]

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PaganFest

The one figuere with the head shot looks awesome, I hope it gets released.

npkauffman

This game is going to be great! i will be in hibernation all winter playing this game!

VivaLeResistance

I just hope they take advantage of the gears world...they could build such an awesome story from it...too bad they didn't take advantage from it in the first one.

the_storyteller

I swear this can get out of hand. Soon we might see books on Gears that mess up the whole story. But those action figures look sweet. Gears 2 will be cool. But i want to see a story.

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