Gears of War Began Life as a Battlefield-Style Shooter Called Unreal Warfare

Gears of War Began Life as a Battlefield-Style Shooter Called Unreal Warfare

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Lee Bradley

Gears of War started life as a class-based Battlefield-style shooter called Unreal Warfare, Epic Games has revealed.

Before Gears became the experience we all know and love, the game focused on large-scale multiplayer battles and even featured vehicles, says Unreal Engine lead programmer James Golding.

"Gears started as a class-based Battlefield kind-of game," said Golding. "It had classes, mechs and it was going to be multiplayer focussed... that was until [Cliff Belszinski] played Medal of Honor and he was like 'no, single-player campaign is where it's at!’”

Along with the change in focus, came a change of name. Unreal Warfare became just Warfare. 

“We redid a whole bunch of the characters at this point, too,” explained Golding. “We went from the traditional-looking soldiers to a more sci-fi looking thing and certain precepts like ‘no laser guns’ came along a little bit later, and it slowly became more in line with the Gears of War we know now.”

Warfare was shown off at GDC 2002 and featured an industrial sci-fi planet with catacombs and caves similar to what ended up being Locust borrows. The game also features four soldiers with similar designs to Fenix and co., as well as enemies called Geist (who went on to evolve into The Locust).

“We were lucky, because we were fairly independent, having the [Unreal Engine] business – we weren’t on a deadline from a publisher or anything,” said Golding. “The project just came up and down and meandered for a long time before it all became assigned to Gears Of War.”

“The team at Unreal was working on the first draft of the game in 2001, as a multiplayer game, and Gears shipped in 2006 – so it took five years for the whole project to become this very different, whole other thing.”

[Via GamesTM]

Comments
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  • "Warfare was shown off at GDC 2002....." I am now searching youtube for this GDC video
  • Please hurry up with gears 4 on the one
  • When I saw the GOG I thought this was gonna be the GOW xbone collection I've been hoping for. O.T. I remember seeing that picture in a magazine many years ago, I'm glad gears is what it is instead of what it could have been.
  • WOW, Insane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZRKX_vUAmY
  • I'm always fascinated to learn how games came to be from conception to reality. Rarely is a game near the same as the first idea was. I'm so glad it turned out the way it has, it's obviously one of the biggest and best franchises of the last generation with all 3 core installments over 90%.
  • I'm glad they made it for 2006. (:
  • Slow news day? CliffyBitch already said these things a while back.
  • @3 yeah man! A got shivers seeing that cog in the news feed again....pity it was a repeat of existing info
  • Haha is that bridge the same at the one u do when u first encounter the locust in gears one looks like the same lay out???
  • "Before Gears became the experience we all know," thought I would fix that for you.
  • Just finished 3 after picking it up on sale, an Xbox staple, nothing I would go crazy for but I would definatley purchase a "Marcus fenix" edition with all 3 games. I'll prob add judgement to my list of 360 games I missed even tho the ratings say otherwise. Wonder what Gears 4 will entail since the story sorta ended. And I would be really mad if they were like jk locust still alive. Maybe there's a new enemy, or a new planet where they are searching for fuel. Would actually like a new cast or have Marcus in more of a "role model" position.
  • I hope they actually decide to make this happen 1 day, sounds awesome.
  • I would buy the shit out of a remastered GOW trilogy. Holy shit I would.
  • @#11 Marcus Fenix collections, that's too funny! Best comment of the day hands down. Thanks for good laughs=) I knew about this for a while. I just hope new game goes back to the roots or is something else entirely while gears 3 was still decent enough Judgement was just atrocious....
  • @7 I agree I remember reading about this before gears 3 even announced it would have a public beta.
  • It's sad they haven't re-done everything for x1 yet. I'd like to see a survival horror for the next gears game. Trying to survive the initial locust attack. Going house to house. Searching for survivors. They can create new enemy locusts that target civilians for extermination. Civilian guns instead of army issue (basically new weapons). OR create a mad max style wasteland 100 years after the locust invasion and go from there. Anything they think of I will be happy with.
  • @11/14 "Gears of War: COGpiliation" lol
  • @16 I can assure you Black Tusk wont try anything too crazy with gears 4. They just need to stick to the 3rd person formula and give us a graphically beautiful game. After they prove that they can make a solid gears game, maybe they get some room to change it up a bit.
  • Kind of glad they didn't make a battlefield type of game with gears... Otherwise it would have been swept under the carpet.
  • I miss the Unreal games(not the Tournament spinoffs), kind of figured that the general jist evolved into Bulletstorm and they left it at that really.
  • Oh I hope it's not too long of a wait for my next dosage of Gears on next gen systems! I can play all the Destiny, Halo and Call of Duty I want, but it's not Gears:( Glad R.Ferguson is on the next Gears game though:)
  • As long as the new one has horde and beast i will be happy. The series has the worst cast in gaming, and i wasn't a fan of campaign.
  • Thought this was news on the new gears when I saw the Cog :( Give us something epic! The suspense is KILLING ME!!!!!!1
  • @18 Party pooper.
  • After watching that GDC demo i was kinda stunned to see that arm riping finisher animation you can now see in gears 3 was used 10 years ago in a demo... Well anyway, judging by what i've seen in that GDC demo, it seemed like most of what Unreal Warfare was supposed to be was turned into Unreal Tournament 2004, especially in the beginning of the video where they show you sort of a junkyard, that was an actual map in UT2004. Great stuff.
  • @1 i actually found that tech vid on youtube .
  • I've yet to play a Gears game, so I don't know for sure. But, if it had stayed in the style they had planned with Unreal Warfare, I likely would have wanted to play it by now. lol
  • NEEED GEARS 4 TRAILER!!!!!
  • I doubt that there's going to be a Gears 4, Pretty sure that they said they were going to reboot it.
  • i wonder if throwing money at the screen will get the game made any faster?
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