A bunch of Gears of War facts you may not know

• Marcus had bright blue eyes because my father did, so I pushed for that
• I never asked for buff characters. Kevin Lanning just made it that way with the AD Jerry.
• Anya originally had huge boobs but I pushed back on Pete to make her less cartoony. Ironic, considering the guys.
• I wanted a chainsaw gun in a game I pitched in 97, called “OverFiend.”
• We had a laser gun planned but we decided for Vietnam like tech so it was cut you can see it in an early image of Marcus.
• Rod snuck in the SP fatigue meter when I was on a biz trip to fix streaming issues. I was furious.
• Rod was assigned to us at MS at E3 years ago and wore the Marcus dorag and at that point I could tell he adored the franchise.
• The style of Gears’ architecture came from my exhaustion of concrete bunkers and Jerry’s hatred of hazard striping.
• A lot of Gears 1’s inspiration game out of my sadness from the failure of my first marriage and a visit to London.
• The idea to do cover came from @MrLeePerry showing me Killswitch one day I was like WANT.
• In hindsight, the Berserker being female and being chained down for breeding is really fucked up. I was in a dark place.
• No writer has ever written two Gears games…yet. The RodMower nearly kills em all with his persistence. 😉
• Before I pitched it to Microsoft I did a bunch of pushups in the hotel and listened to Eminem’s Lose Yourself because dudebro.
• Pitching Gears 1 was hard. New IP, new camera, new campaign, new MP, new console, etc…On paper it was set to fail.
• Maria was my personal statement on Terri Schaivo and my belief in right to death…through a dudebro shooter with lizard men.
• Maria was voiced by Courtney Ford who was a dear friend in high school who later married Brandon Routh and we’re still pals.
• We cast Carlos Ferro as Dom because I was tired of hearing Speedy Gonzales voices in Splinter Cell games, no offense, Ubi.
• Tanya (jessen) Watson wrote the note on the back of the photo of Maria and Dom that shipped with Gears 2.
• Picture of Dom and Maria from the SE of Gears 2 was drawn based on my ex girlfriend and I at the time.
• Dave, our lead LD at the time, wanted Tai to just jump off a cliff or something, but I pushed for the shotgun suicide.
• The torture the Locust did in Gears was my thinly veiled statement about Gitmo…through a dudebro shooter with lizardmen.
• Marcus was named Fenix because I lost everything from the failed marriage and was rising from my own ashes.
• Dom’s original last name was “Glynn” until Rod saw a box of cigars on my desk that said “Santiago” and suggested that.
• Post Epic, Gears 1’s art director Jerry was slated to direct the reboot of Thundercats until the CG TMNT failed.
• Mad World was my anthem when I was going through the failure of my first marriage. Somehow marketing felt this and suggested it.
• The other song was “My Immortal” by Evanescence but that’s way less cool.
• Baird was named after a childhood friend who was a bit of a dick, Mark Baird. #GearsFacts Baird just sounds like a dick.
• We cast Lester as Cole because of his charisma in the Terry Tate ads. We were like “I’d go to war with that guy.”
• Before the game came out, Randy Pitchford came to town to play it and saw how tough the Locust were and said “it’s a grinder.”
• Years later I’d go to Dallas to test Borderlands early and then meet and fall for my wife. We met in a W hotel designed in UE.
• In SP the last bullet in each magazine is 25% stronger so the chances of “oh shit” fighting a bad guy are high in the game.
• Boomers were named after the robots from Bubblegum Crisis, which was inspired by Blade Runner.
• I said to the art department on Gears (post quake era) NO FUCKING SKULLS IN THIS WORLD. that clearly worked lol
• I wanted players to not drop weapons upon death unless you execute them as incentive. Ray Davis shot it down. 😉
• I always wanted a “long range revive pistol” in Gears but Rod always thought it was a dumb idea. 😉
• To this day, Epic, Rod, Microsoft and I always kept a good relationship. Biz is biz but friends are forever. I’m signing off.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is available on Xbox One right now, for $40 – and gives you backwards compatible, Xbox 360 versions of the rest of the games.