A look back on the development of Gears of War (2006)

Source: Wallpaper Flare

The first Gears of War was released all the way back in 2006 by the now juggernaut developer, Epic Games. The game itself was revolutionary for many aspects including gameplay, art direction and story.

Epic Games

As for the developers, Epic Games, this was not their first hit game. Gears of War was the company's big break into the then-new console market. Previously, Epic Games had built a solid foundation of themselves on the pc community with their release of Unreal in 1998. The Unreal Engine would soon go on to make more sequels to Unreal Tournament and be used as a foundation for their upcoming Gears of War series.

Epic Games would soon catch the attention of Microsoft and they would make a deal to build this new Gears of War franchise on the Xbox console. It was quite the drastic change from their unreal game as they had to shift focus from pc mechanics and hardware, to the up and coming 7th console generation. This is even more noticeable when looking at the stark difference in their previous game, Unreal, to the Gears of War franchise. For instance, Gears of War was a third-person, cover to cover shooter that ditched the basic mechanics of traditional FPS games on pc.

Inspiration For Gears of War

The most notorious aspect of the first Gears of War game was obviously it's third-person cover/shooter mechanics. According to developers who worked on the game, they took inspiration from multiple games that had already broke ground into this gameplay system. Those games included Resident Evil 4 and Kill Switch. The core gameplay over over-the-shoulder camera perspectives and cover-to-cover shooting would be refined in Gears of War.

When it comes to the inspiration for the game's story, it's quite the wild ride. The enemy Locusts themselves were said to be inspired by the Lord of The Rings franchise. As for the general tone of "rising from ashes" and even the name Fenix was credited to, "Bleszinski's first, failed marriage and a trip to London." (GameSkinny). The premise and vibe of the game was nothing new with other competing games of the mid and late 2000s. Most games at that time were dark and gritty in both the FPS genre and others. Nevertheless, the game still delivered on a solid narrative that was supported by an outstanding gameplay design.

Remaster and PC Port

The original Gears of War game was shortly ported to pc only one year after it's exclusive console release. The game did deliver on high fidelity textures, a map editor, and bonus content. The port was met with mediocre reviews and scores as bugs plagued the game (which isn't surprising as the game was designed with consoles and controllers in mind).

In 2015, the game was brought back to pc again in a new "remaster" edition. While technically, the game is a remaster, it was met with harsh criticism as the new lighting and design changes completely reshaped the vibe of the original release. The most popular comparison is that the remastered models look like movie stars while the original models look like gritty and "hardcore" soldiers.

Overall Thoughts

The game does come with an interesting story in it's development process and we can continue to see it's influence on modern third-person-shooters. The game itself can still be enjoyed to this day. However, while it did lay the foundation of third-person-shooters we are use to today, you can't help but feel it's age. From the story, to aesthetic, to gameplay design, it was a relic of it's time and can stand tall as Microsoft's legacy games.