At face value, the heroes of Gears of War aren’t all that likable. No one can relate to soldiers with Hulk-like muscles, bloody chainsaws, and a penchant for catchy one-liners like “Shit, yeah!” Some circles of the Internet (including former Gears designer Cliff Bleszinski) have affectionately pegged this exaggerated masculinity as being too “dude-bro.”

The problem, I think, isn’t with the excessive violence and humor on their own, but in the way they clash against the third-person-shooter franchise’s narrative tone. Developer Epic Games attempted to add some empathy and drama — such as the search for a character’s missing wife in Gears of War 2 — over the course of the last three games, all to varying levels of success.

I brought this up during my interview with Gears of War: Judgment writers Rob Auten and Tom Bissell last week in San Francisco, where we all found ourselves taking in an unusually warm afternoon as we stood on the third-floor landing of an outdoor staircase. It was a nice change of pace from the noisy room in the floor below us, which was full of journalists and Epic Games employees curb-stomping the crap out of each other in Judgment’s multiplayer modes.

“I think Gears’ reputation for that is not entirely earned,” said Bissell. “Because the fact is, when you have four characters killing stuff in a combat scenario, certain ‘dude-bro’ emotional insinuations are inevitable. What are they supposed to do? The kiln of combat forges these relationships.”

Bissell is an award-winning and prolific writer whose work encompasses a wide range of topics. He has written books about the Vietnam War, his experience as a member of the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan, and even video games.

“If anything, [Gears] is not afraid to acknowledge that more openly,” said Rob Auten, Bissell’s writing partner-in-crime. “I think the ‘dude-bro’ [image] is sort of a double-edged sword: People slag Gears for being sort of emo, and they slag it for being dude-bro. It’s like, ‘Look guys, you can’t have both!”

Auten is no stranger to working with video games, either. He’s been “in or around” the industry for the last 10 years in different jobs, including being an animator and a writer.

From our short chat, it was clear that Auten and Bissell (along with Epic Games and developer People Can Fly) were out to craft a decidedly different Gears tale that would remain true to the series’ roots while injecting some much-needed nuance and personality.

Making Kilo Squad more dynamic

The main characters of the first three Gears of War games were Delta Squad members Marcus Fenix, Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, Damon Baird, and Dominic Santiago. Since Judgment is a prequel to the trilogy, we have a different group in the form of Kilo Squad. Included in its ranks are younger versions of Baird and Cole, as well as new faces Sofia Hendrik and Garron Paduk.

“I think our goal was to make the characters a little bit more … jagged,” said Bissell. “Marcus and Dom love each other — they bicker a little bit — but they’re fundamentally old friends. Our characters are not old friends: They barely know each other. Baird and Cole have known each other for a month. Sophia and Paduk hate each other. Sofia doesn’t like Baird. Paduk hates everyone.”

I played about an hour of Judgment’s campaign, and in that time, seeing just how different Kilo Squad was in comparison to the trilogy’s Delta Squad surprised me. They’re still efficient killing machines when it comes to fighting off the invasion of the monstrous Locusts, but their disagreements and snide comments to one another gave the impression that they’re far from being a cohesive military unit.

“And to me, [that kind of interaction] automatically creates an interesting dynamic between these four squadmates,” Bissell continued. “And so right away, when I realized these are going to be our characters, I thought, ‘Well, this is gonna be really good. This is gonna create a kind of dynamic that I don’t think has really existed in the Gears [universe] … But I think the relationships between the four people in Judgment is a little bit subtler than it is in the other games.”

“We talked to some real military people a couple of times through the process,” said Auten. “There were some people who came by Epic, and they would tell us stories of, ‘We had this one guy in our fire team and we didn’t like him very much, so we all kind of decided we weren’t going to talk to him for a year’ [Laughs]. These kind of reactions — characters, people who work closely [together] — conflict does come up in intensive situations, and we just kind of want to enable that to happen. That’s drama, right?”

Paduk’s biggest fans

Garron Paduk seemed like an interesting, if volatile, choice as a member of Kilo Squad. He fought on the wrong side of the fence during Gears’ Pendulum Wars (kind of like the universe’s version of World War II) and joined the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) because he thought it was better to serve his former enemy than stay in jail. He definitely fights with a chip on his shoulder, much to the dismay of the other Kilo members.

Source: Microsoft

Garron Paduk

And the writers absolutely adore him.

“We’re probably Paduk’s biggest fans,” said Auten. “There have been points in the game where people have come up to us and were like, ‘Paduk is kind of a downer.’ For us, [the answer] was never ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ We’re like, ‘Look, let’s try this. Let’s take Paduk as we know and have ambivalent feelings about him in the Judgment part of the game, and let’s throw him umpteen years into the future and imagine who he would’ve become [Editor's note: Paduk also appears in Aftermath, a campaign that takes place in the same timeline as Gears of War 3. You unlock it after earning enough stars in Judgment's story mode].

“He’s taken his own direction. He’s not a Stranded. He’s not a soldier. He respects soldiers but doesn’t want to be part of the military unit…. And he’s traipsing around basically the last big battle he ever fought and the place that has a lot of emotional resonance for him [as he leads] this kind of rag-tag group of stragglers. All of a sudden, all of the Paduk-ness of Paduk really came rushing back into the character, and everybody was like, ‘Okay, Paduk’s pretty good.’”

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I’m tired of fighting Locusts. The subterranean monstrosities have been terrorizing the poor inhabitants of Sera for an entire console generation (almost 20 years in the planet’s fictional timeline) ever since the first Gears of War debuted in 2006. When developers Epic Games and People Can Fly announced last year that they were making a fourth blood-splattering entry in the Xbox 360-exclusive franchise, the only response I could muster was, “Why?”

That “why” turned into a more positive “hmm” after playing a few hours of Gears of War: Judgment (out March 19 for the Xbox 360) at a preview event held last week in San Francisco. This third-person shooter plays a lot like the other Gears: You still slam into cover, you still use rifles equipped with chainsaws, and you still blow up enemies into a potpourri of severed body parts.

It’s a formula that has worked well for Epic in the past, and Judgment doesn’t stray too far from it. I’m still not sure if this prequel can shake off some of that fatigue, but I found that the parts that were new did manage to reinvigorate (if only temporarily) my enthusiasm for mowing down Locusts.

Optional ‘declassify’ rules

Judgment’s campaign begins with a tribunal. Familiar Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) soldiers Damon Baird and Augustus “Cole Train” Cole are under arrest (along with new faces Sophia Hendrik and Garron Paduk) for disobeying orders. The narrative bounces from one flashback to another as each member of Kilo Squad gives his personal account of the events that led up to their alleged crimes.

But that isn’t the whole story. People Can Fly separated each level into four or five digestible chunks, short sections of gameplay that you can finish in a few minutes. Each of these has a large Crimson Omen (a red cog with a skull that also serves as the series’ recognizable logo) plastered on a wall, and when you examine it, you’re given the option to play with the new declassification system. If you accept, not only will the combat become more challenging but you’ll also hear different lines of dialogue that describe what really happened during these missions — details that were normally hidden away from the public eye.

The challenges vary. While playing a newly revealed level called “Onyx Point,” I saw several different examples of the declassification missions in action. One had me run through a series of bunkers in under four minutes, and if I failed that, an off-shore missile attack would kill me. Another forced me to fight with just a heavy shield and a Lancer rifle. The next challenge introduced a strong gust of wind that made it hard to move and shoot. And one of the last sets in this stage limited my visibility by shutting off the lights and temporarily slowing down my health regeneration.

The declassify rules felt like the most refreshing gameplay change to the franchise. I never knew what I was getting into when I switched them on. I not only had to worry about the Locusts but also focus on fighting them with these seemingly random restrictions in place. It made the combat feel tense and exciting, and for a while there, I almost forgot I was facing the same Locusts from the first three games.

Closing the loop

During the event, Epic also revealed Judgment’s Aftermath mode for the first time. It’s a story campaign set in the same timeline as Gears of War 3. You’re still with Baird and Cole, who reunite with Paduk after they split from fellow Delta Squad member Marcus Fenix to go on a separate mission. Think of it as like an epilogue to Judgment’s tale.

I spent around 20 minutes playing Aftermath, where I fought a large group of zombie-like creatures called Formers in the city of Halvo Bay. Except for the new control tweaks — Y to swap between your weapons and LB to toss or aim a grenade — this mode doesn’t have any of the new features from Judgment. According to Epic Games producer Alan Van Slyke, Aftermath is for fans who loved Gears of War 3 and “wanted more of it.”

The most exciting prospect about Aftermath for me, however, was getting the chance to see how Paduk has changed in the decades since his last meeting with Baird and Cole. Paduk fought on the losing side of the Pendulum Wars (Sera’s version of World of War II) and only joined Kilo Squad because it was better than wasting away in a COG prison. I could only gather small hints of his backstory — he clearly carries a chip on his shoulder and doesn’t care too much about his squadmates — but that was enough to make me think that he’s the most interesting addition to the Gears fiction in years.

Multiplayer: OverRun and Survival

Gears of War 2 from 2008 remains as one of my most memorable gaming experiences of this generation. At the time, I was in college and living with four roommates; we had two Xbox 360s and two copies of Gears of War 2 between us. Together, we played the hell out of Horde mode (where you try to survive against waves of increasingly challenging Locusts) for weeks on end, often staying up till 4 or 5 a.m.

For one reason or another, we couldn’t capture that same feeling of camaraderie and teamwork in Gears of War 3. But I have a feeling that Judgment’s Survival and OverRun multiplayer modes may rekindle that. In Survival, you and your five-man team — made up of classes such as Soldier, Engineer, Scout, and Medic — defend key points throughout a map (with barriers, turret guns, and traps) from waves of A.I.-controlled Locusts.

OverRun works the same way except this time, you’re up against real people — both teams take turns playing as Locusts and COGs. It was exhilarating to demolish my enemies with an all-powerful swing from the gargantuan Mauler, leaving room for my allies to swarm the COG’s defenses and destroy their generator. My team had way more losses than victories that day, but when we did win, it felt good.

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Guest appearances and surprise crossovers in video games usually distract the player and end immersion. But well-placed cameos are amusing — especially if you have to dig around to find them.

Check out the gallery below to see the cool (and bizarre) cameos we gathered from 13 recent games.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Gears of War is bombarding the childrens’ toy market this month. French toy manufacturer Meccano has created a range of construction sets based on the violent, Mature-rated third-person-shooter gaming franchise, and it is marketing them heavily at boys 8 and over. The sets are on sale at toy stores in the U.S. and the United Kingdom (one place you can find them is at Toys ‘R’ Us). Nickelodeon, Disney XD, and Cartoon Network have also been running advertising spots for the toys on U.K. television  in the lead up to Christmas despite a target demographic that should never have played the games.

Wandering around Toys ‘R’ Us with my two children last week, this marketing strategy and the in-store placement of the new Meccano range struck an odd chord. Nestled snugly alongside pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog and brightly colored constructable cars, Gears of War protagonist Marcus Fenix’s face staring out from its Meccano box looked strangely out-of-place. It made me wonder why such a range is being aimed at young children.

Aspiring gamers

I contacted Meccano (U.K.) to ask why it’s targeting such a young audience, and whether it’s concerned about cross-promoting Mature-rated games to that demographic. “The Gears of War range is targeted at 8+,” said a spokesperson for Meccano. “Our focus is on vehicles from the game as well as characters and weapons, which is not dissimilar to Mega Bloks’ Halo models. The ambition of the range is to broaden Meccano’s appeal to younger modelers as well as to older modelers who are also gamers and who will be familiar with the 18+ game.”

The Halo Mega Bloks range is a similar concept to Gears of War Meccano line. First released in 2009, Halo Mega Bloks — based on Microsoft’s series of first-person-shooter games — are found prominently displayed in most major toy stores. It’s easy to forget that Halo, too, is a gaming franchise aimed at a mature audience.

“It would seem a tenuous proposition to aim [Gears of War] toys at 8 year olds based on a license they ‘shouldn’t’ know,” said Sean McGowan, a toy industry expert and senior analyst at Needham & Company, via email. “But aspirational marketing is nothing new, is it?”

“The success of the Halo toys tells us two things,” said McGowan. “Firstly, that kids like what their older siblings  – or even parents — are doing, and a watered down toy version lets them participate. Secondly, that collectors who are ‘of age’ like to have toys depicting their favorite properties.

“I can tell you that the median age of buyers of Halo blocks from Mega is much older than the average for their blocks, so maybe it won’t actually be little kids buying Gears of War toys. But, still, you have to wonder how it could be a responsible idea.”

Epic Games: We don’t market Gears of War to children

I approached Microsoft to discuss the Gears of War and Halo toys and the implications of involving young children in the world of Mature-rated games. “Generally speaking, video game figures and collectibles are not necessarily created with a younger market in mind, so we would not look to comment on Halo-branded items,” said a Microsoft spokesman. It also declined to comment on Gears of War Meccano, leaving that to Gears developer and intellectual property [IP] owner Epic Games.

“It’s always been the stance of Epic Games that we don’t market the Gears of War series to children under the age of 18,” the studio said in a statement. “We do not condone the actions of Meccano, and we will do everything in our power to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

When asked for more details on the license negotiation, the studio issued an additional statement: “Epic Games owns the Gears of War IP and we advise our licensees on high-level branding for the franchise. We vigorously support the ESRB/PEGI ratings system. If a licensee comes in conflict with that, we make every effort to correct the situation.”

That is a strongly worded response, showing that Epic Games is not at all happy with Meccano’s use of its license. What it means for the future of Gears of War Meccano toys, though, is not totally clear.

A case for the ESRB?

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) provides video game age ratings for the benefit of consumers, helping keep unsuitable games away from minors. But its jurisdiction doesn’t extend to related products, meaning the sale and marketing of these toys do not contravene ESRB regulations.

“ESRB enforces guidelines that prohibit inappropriate target marketing of Mature-rated games to children,” Eliot Mizrachi, the ESRB’s director of communications, said in a statement. “These restrictions pertain to ads placed in media [in the U.S. or Canadian markets] whose audience is known to be composed of a certain proportion of children but do not apply to ancillary products that may be associated with or related to a Mature-rated game.”

The European equivalent of ESRB ratings is the PEGI system, overseen by the Video Standards Council. When asked about the Gears of War toys, the VSC was unconcerned . “There does not appear to be any attempt to directly use the toys as a means of selling the game which, in any case, is legally restricted to 18-year-olds and above,” VSC Communications Officer Gianni Zamo said.

Mega Call of Duty?

With no guidance from the ESRB or VSC on the sale of such toys, responsibility seems to fall on the shoulders of individual companies. Where there is a clear market, though, it will inevitably be targeted. Mega Bloks’ success with Halo has set an example for other mature gaming franchises to follow, and Needham and Company analyst Sean McGowan said he would “not be surprised to see MegaBrands do toys tied to Call of Duty, too, considering their link to Activision through Skylanders.”

For the time being, Gears of War seems set to continue its infiltration of the toy store, with blind-bagged figures joining the fray. Soon being traded in a schoolyard near you.

You can see the initial TV advertisement for Meccano Gears of War below. Meccano/Erector (U.S.) director Robert Grey told me there is no plan to run such television spots in any North American market.

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Epic Games may have lost Gears of War mastermind Cliff Bleszinski, but it just enlisted a big name from Microsoft to head its Unreal 4-focused development team.

Laura Fryer will take the general manager position at Epic Games Seattle. That West Coast studio will develop new game using Epic’s own cutting-edge Unreal 4 graphics engine.

“Laura Fryer is one of the brightest leaders of the game industry today, and we’re thrilled to have her guide our new Seattle studio,” Epic Games president Michael Capps said. “Laura was a key member of the Gears of War team, and we’ve long hoped to work with her again.”

In her time at Microsoft Game Studios, Laura Fryer acted as executive producer on Gears of War and Gears of War 2. Fryer was one of the first employees of Microsoft’s gaming initiative. In her time with that publisher, she helped bring developers from around the world to the Xbox platforms.

Epic Games is looking for more talent to join Fryer in Seattle. The company is hiring programmers and people with experience creating online game services.

Bleszinski, Epic Games’ former design director, left the company earlier this month after 20 years with the studio.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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By itself, that isn’t a huge surprise. Lots of game developers are moving on from hardcore game companies to where the jobs are in social and mobile games. But it says a lot when the shift happens with someone who is working on some of the highest profile games in the console business.

Ortega is a former journalist, based in Seattle. Although we’re only finding out about his move to Zynga now, he apparently left Microsoft Game Studios and started working for Zynga back in April.

There was a day when game developers scoffed at Zynga games. They were so simple that they didn’t need writers. But Zynga has nearly 3,000 employees now and it has 150 seasoned game designers. Clearly, bigger things are in the works at the largest maker of social games on Facebook.

Ortega has written for every major American comic book company, including Marvel, DC Comics, Dark Horse, Image, Top Cow, TokyoPop, and Dynamite Entertainment. He has worked on properties such as Star Wars, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer, and Battlestar Galactica. He wrote the novel Frequencies and worked on the smash hit Gears of War 2 and the Gears of War comic books. For Gears of War 2, he contributed to the overall story and wrote the entire screenplay.

Zynga declined comment, other than to confirm that Ortega was working for the company, and Ortega wasn’t available for an interview. He once said that he got into the game industry because of “my love for the medium and the art form. Video games, interactive entertainment, dynamic storytelling … whatever term we use to describe this medium, I’m just really excited that we’re finally being recognized as a legitimate art form.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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