Last night, I had a chance to play OverRun mode, the great-looking new versus multiplayer in Gears of War: Judgment. Today, I sat down with Epicâs Cliff Bleszinski and People Can Flyâs Adrian Chmielarz to hear the first details about its single-player campaign.
For starters, thereâs something that Chmielarz called âS3,â or the smart spawn system. It sounds more or less like Left 4 Deadâs AI directorâbased on how youâre doing in the campaign, the game will change the flow of the game, sometimes dramatically.
If youâre doing well, more and more difficult enemies will spawn in different locations, pushing you harder; if youâre doing poorly, the game will ease up. This all happens relative to the difficulty that youâve chosen at the outsetâif youâre playing on casual, it wonât get too hard.
The idea is to promote replayability, since as Bleszinski pointed out, many people thought that Gears 3 was a short game even though it was technically their longest. Thatâs because it was a bit too easy, in his opinion. The goal with Gears of War: Judgment is to give players something much more difficult.
The other big change is something called the âDeclassification System,â which is a smart bit of shiftiness built into the gameâs story. Which, as we already knew, is a prequel that will star the seriesâ up-till-now second bananas Baird and Cole Train over a decade before the events of the first three Gears game. Bleszinski described Judgment as taking place slightly after Emergence Dayâto put it in game terms, he called it âEmergence Dayâs launch window.â
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(Of course, I asked if Emergence Day had day-one DLC. Bleszinski declined to comment. Heh.)
âThereâs more game in this game than previously.â
See, Gears of War: Judgment is a âframe narrativeââthe entire story is testimony given at Baird, Cole, and the rest of Kilo Squadâs trial for treason. Weâre not sure what events led to them being disgraced as they have been, and weâll find out over the course of the game.
The flashbacks wonât be reliable, howeverâat least, not 100%. Sometimes, Baird and company will remember things âwrong,â and eventually youâll get a âdeclassifiedâ version of each mission to play. Sometimes thatâll mean that you have weapon restrictions, or that the setting or number of enemies are different. Other times it sounds like the implications could be more dramatic, though we didnât get into the details of what that might mean, exactly.
This is all laying the groundwork for a nifty bit of storytelling, though I must say I was a bit bummed to hear about another feature that allows players to âunlockâ power-ups and weapons that are fuzzy because they âcanât be remembered.â But if you spend points, youâll remember them!
I donât quite know why this idea turns me offâafter all, having different power-ups will make the levels feel different. But something about it seems silly? Weâll see how it looks in the final game.
Most of what I heard about Gears of War: Judgment sounds as though the game will be much faster-paced, brutal, dynamic and difficult than its predecessors.
âThereâs more game in this game than previously,â said Chmielarz.
With the game slated for a 2013 release, we will doubtless see more of the single-player game in the not-too-distant future. Regardless, what Chmielarz and Bleszinski are talking about arenât merely cosmetic changesâthese will likely substantially change the feel of Gears
