The Techland Interview: Cliff Bleszinski, Part 1

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How do you plan on doing that?

We’re committing to four-player co-op. We hadn’t had that in the campaign before and the thing that makes it special here is the only way to play as Cole and Baird is to play as Players Three and Four. We want to find out ways to make players re-use the campaign and play through again, so if you’ve only played through with two players, you’ll want to play with more players. I can’t reveal more about that yet. One of the things were doing is switching up the story focus. There’s a part of  the game where you’re not even playing as Marcus and Dom. You’re playing as another squad and the storylines start interweaving and overlapping Pulp Fiction-style before they sort of merge. It’s a fun way to play with the timeline that we haven’t done much of yet. There’ll be new weaponry, new executions. I can’t get too much into the multiplayer yet. It’s important to note that we’ve added a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. One of the mantras has been “Give the fans what they want.” They certainly love the shotgun so we’re gonna give them a shotgun where if you’re close enough you can gib all three at the same time. We’re also giving then the Pendulum Wars-era Lancer [a historical predecessor to Gears’ signature chainsaw/assault rifle], which you may have seen on one of the novels. It’s kind of a classic assault rifle with a giant blade on the front, which our animators are finding out all sorts of fun ways to execute enemies with. Also, Karen Travis is the writer of Gears of War 3. She wrote the last two novels so she understands the characters and the universe very, very well. She’s able to breathe a lot more life and a lot more humanity into them. You get to see a lot more emotional range in Marcus and who he is. He’s not just this stoic guy. It’s the dead of summer; the situation’s getting worse. Humanity’s on its last legs and people are getting frustrated now.

So, is this the endgame for Sera, for the franchise?

If you take Gears 1 through Gears 3 and you put them together in one big bucket, it’s its own satisfying entity. This is the end of the trilogy. Moving forward, if there’s anything else after that, I’d hope it’d be in a little bit of a different vein. I’d hate for it to be “Oh, snap! More Locusts!” or “More Lambent!”

Spell Lambent for me…

L-A-M-B-E-N-T. It means glowy. It all ties back into the energy source that was the cause of the war in the first place.

At what stage of development are you for G3?

We’re a year out. At this point, the campaign is fully playable. A lot of the co-op and multiplayer features are coming online. Previously, for Gears 2, our tagline was “Bigger, Better, More Bad-Ass,” which got played out very quickly. The key messages for Gears 3 are that it will be the best-looking, most fun Gears to date but it’ll also be the most polished. And that’s the beauty of holding it off until April. Holiday [timeframe for releases] is still so jammed so it’s, like, let’s carve out our own window like Will Smith used to do with July 4th. Let’s call out our date and take the next year and just make a great game and polish it. Because the bar continues to be raised. There’s some amazing games out there, from Uncharted 2 to Modern Warfare, and we need to exceed that bar [from where they raised it].

What was the last thing that wowed you?

Heavy Rain.

Do you feel like it lived up to the hype, in terms of being a new evolution of storytelling in this industry?

I do. But, I say this as a huge fan of the game, I don’t think they solved the uncanny valley. I think Avatar got close but even then Avatar used blue people. I think, with the sheer amount of animation in that game, they did a great job of what they were going for. Every ounce of me wanted to dislike that game. I was, like, what is this emotional quick-time event, Dragon’s Lair type game? But, within the first 20, 30 minutes, I was, like, this is a whole new genre as far as I’m concerned. I really thinking five years you’re going to see interactive dramas with Natal that have guys like George Clooney in them.

So, on to the other game you’re announcing, Bulletstorm.

Bulletstorm is this kind of great, over-the-top first-person-shooter. Imagine a Call of Duty meets Firefly/Serenity with a little bit of Duke Nuke’Em in it. People Could Fly are some crazy Polish developers who we work with and fundamentally what they’re trying to do is re-invent the core shooter gameplay, which is what Gears did with cover. So, how they’re doing that is with body movements of kicking and sliding and leashing. You have this energy whip, which is kind of like a grapple, and when you start combining these moves with the very unique weapons these guys create, the possibilities start getting really crazy. I can’t describe it. When you see the video, you slide into a guy, kick him up into the air, it goes into slow-motion, you surgically pick off which part of him you want to hit. You get rewards for shooting that different part and then you tie an explosive to him and use that to blow up other guys. And then it flies into a cactus. It’s very kinetic.

What’s the development relationship been, with them in Poland? Does Epic have any kind of regular oversight?

Yeah, I review builds two to three times a week in multiple meetings. My job right now is to sit down with each project and sprinkle a little bit of the special sauce to make sure it’s fun. And also to particpate in the marketing and the PR of how the product is evangelized to the public and make sure PCF delivers something that’s Epic quality.

Want more? Check out Part 2 of Techland’s interview with Cliff Bleszinski to hear more about the games he’s working on and what he thinks of motion control and the hardcore gamer fanbase.

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