Cliff Bleszinski was the lead designer and face of Gears of War through the original three releases on the Xbox 360. With the release of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition today for the Xbox One, the outspoken game designer looked back on the development of the game that kicked off the franchise, and shared thoughts on Twitter that were sometimes dark, sometimes funny, but largely informative.
It’s no surprise when songwriters and artists draw from their personal life experiences for inspiration in their work. The same can be said for game designers, too. In the case of Bleszinski and Gears of War , the game was heavily influenced by a rough time in the developer’s life as his marriage fell apart and ended in divorce.
“In hindsight, the Berserker being female and being chained down for breeding is really f****ed up. I was in a dark place,” Bleszinski wrote .
A lot of Gears 1’s inspiration game out of my sadness from the failure of my first marriage and a visit to London. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Marcus was named Fenix because I lost everything from the failed marriage and was rising from my own ashes. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Mad World was my anthem when I was going through the failure of my first marriage. Somehow marketing felt this and suggested it. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The other song was “My Immortal” by Evanescence but that’s way less cool. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
It wasn’t just the game world. Inspiration for some of the characters came from people Bleszinski knew in real life. When asked if Marcus is based on someone from real life, Bleszinski tweeted the following.
No, but Anya is based off someone who broke my heart. #GearsFacts https://t.co/WHx4103Stt
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Even Baird is drawn from a real life doppelganger. “Baird was named after a childhood friend who was a bit of a d**k, Mark Baird,” Bleszinski revealed . “Baird just sounds like a d***.” Cole Train is an unstoppable mountain of energy and enthusiasm. While he’s not necessarily based off a real world acquaintance of Bleszinski, his character is completely driven by voice actor Terry Tate.
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.” #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Some of Bleszinski’s more interesting comments were about the design of the game. The oversized and ultra-buff bodies of Gears characters have turned into a running meme, for example, but it was driven more by the art director than Bleszinski.
I never asked for buff characters. Kevin Lanning just made it that way with the AD Jerry. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Anya originally had huge boobs but I pushed back on Pete to make her less cartoony. Ironic, considering the guys. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
I wanted a chainsaw gun in a game I pitched in 97, called “OverFiend.” #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
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. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The style of Gears’ architecture came from my exhaustion of concrete bunkers and Jerry’s hatred of hazard striping. #GearsFacts
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The idea to do cover came from @MrLeePerry showing me Killswitch one day I was like WANT. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
That one was me, I like making non-interactive gameplay interactive, so during reloads how can we make it fun?! https://t.co/HfCiwI3nDu
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
“In SP the last bullet in each magazine is 25% stronger so the chances of ‘oh sh**’ ” fighting a bad guy are high in the game,” Bleszinski added.
Boomers were named after the robots from Bubblegum Crisis, which was inspired by Blade Runner. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Other tidbits include Bleszinski admitting that the ability to “gib” other players in multiplayer with the Gnasher shotgun eventually won out, despite Epic’s attempts to fight it. He also put a directive out to the world designers that no skulls be shown in the game at all, because he was sick of their use from Quake . Bleszinksi wasn’t afraid to throw in a little social commentary, too, as he used Gears as his way to touch on sensitive topics such as the Terry Schiavo and the Gitmo prison in Cuba for terrorists.
Maria was my personal statement on Terri Schaivo and my belief in right to death…through a dudebro shooter with lizard men. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The torture the Locust did in Gears was my thinly veiled statement about Gitmo…through a dudebro shooter with lizardmen. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Not every one of Bleszinski’s ideas made it into Gears of War, despite him being such an influential decision maker. There were times when his thoughts were shot down.
I wanted players to not drop weapons upon death unless you execute them as incentive. @EpicRayD shot it down. ? #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
I always wanted a “long range revive pistol” in Gears but Rod always thought it was a dumb idea. ? #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
“Rod” is Rod Fergusson, who is now the Executive Producer on the Gears of War franchise and is leading the development of Gear of War 4 at The Coalition. Fans of the franchise know that he’s been dedicated to Gears for years, something that Bleszinski confirmed happened almost immediately.
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. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Of course, Bleszinski and Fergusson didn’t always see eye to eye.
Rod snuck in the SP fatigue meter when I was on a biz trip to fix streaming issues. I was furious. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The “fatigue meter” forces players to stop running after approximately ten seconds in Gears of War . Bleszinski wanted the ability to run infinitely, but Fergusson though otherwise. Fergusson went on to make some other key decisions, such as bringing in John DiMaggio to voice Marcus Fenix, and coming up with Dom’s last name of Santiago. He was also the reason for no single writer returning to do another game.
No writer has ever written two Gears games…yet. The RodMower nearly kills em all with his persistence. ? #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
Possible the most fun fact in all of this, however, was how Bleszinski pumped himself up to pitch Gears of War to Microsoft.
Before I pitched it to Microsoft I did a bunch of pushups in the hotel and listened to Eminem’s Lose Yourself because dudebro. #GearsFacts — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 25, 2015
The pushups and Eminem worked as Gears of War went on to be a showcase game for the Xbox 360 ahead of the launch of Halo 3 . The series went on to sell more than 22 million copies and earn over $1 billion in revenue.
[Images via Cliff Bleszinki / Twitter, Gears of War ]
