Gears of War: E-Day – What We Learned Behind Closed Doors at Xbox

[00:00] Hey everybody, I'm Ryan McCaffrey from IGN. I am with the only person I know that's a bigger Gears of War fan than I am, and that's my podcast on live castmate, Miranda Sanchez. Miranda, we just got out of seeing a behind-closed-doors presentation. We didn't get to see new gameplay, but we had the developers talking to us for an hour, answering a whole bunch of questions about this prequel, Gears of War E-Day.

[00:24] So, where do you want to start with this? What do we want to talk about? sort of establishing that since they didn't allow us to dig too much into things I haven't shown, we really try to keep it focused on some big moments that we saw in the reveal,

[00:38] and of course in their longer broadcast later, and that was on movement, gameplay, and of course the lore. So we saw, honestly, a pretty neat scene from the books, like in the trailer when Marcus gets pinned and then, of course, saved,

[00:53] and that is like, you know, verbatim from the book. but the location is quite different, right? So they kind of, you know, touched on that, and I said, hey, so you're taking the stuff from the book,

[01:05] which, awesome, because this is, E-Day is an established thing of forcing years lore, but how are you guys going to make sure that you're preserving, like, what's existed, or does that not even matter? You guys went to Star Wars Episode I

[01:17] and just changed, like, force now has midichlorians, you know, it's like, I don't know what that, like, year's, like, example would be, like, something with emotion maybe, or you really want to get into it, but I think like that's just a pivotal thing for folks like me who love the Lord

[01:30] really love these characters it's like what are you guys doing and they're like no we are not like these still matter like we want to build this out in a way where we can expand like who you know in this game in this world

[01:42] because there's a lot new characters we saw how they did that really well with High Flusters when they move away from like our babes and like show new people in what they're doing and I think they're trying to do that with this new squad

[01:54] and tried to show, like, of course, you know, Marcus and Dom, but the other two new characters are, like, a really good opportunity for them. Yeah, Bravo Squad is what we learned. Yeah, so I think as far as the content from, like, the stories of old,

[02:09] they said that they're kind of taking a lift-and-shift method. So, like, that scene in the trailer that we saw, or I guess like the extended gameplay, they took that moment from a different location in the lore, technically,

[02:21] and shifted it to this new city that they're creating, so that they can, like, really make the most... A little creative freedom. Yeah, yeah. But not outright, like, rewriting Gears history. Exactly. Like they not going to meet Cole and Bear for instance Like they don meet canonically here so why would they see him But Coltrane is huge He a star And so they said that if you pay attention in the back of the bar there is like a thrashball poster with Cole on it because he a huge star

[02:49] So it's like, of course, he still has a presence here. It's just not the thing that he's being used to. They very clearly said that this game follows Marcus and Dom across three days and it never leaves them.

[03:03] And I couldn't help but think, oh, I wonder if the follow-up to this game might be like a Baird game. I couldn't help but wonder, like, huh, where do we go from here? But the good news is, Eden did seem to be heavily focusing on characters.

[03:18] Like, they mentioned in the session that so many people die, apparently. And this one, like, it's like two-thirds of the population gets killed. and that people that you're fighting alongside,

[03:33] at some point in the game, you'll find their cod tag later because they've been killed. So it seems like it's going to be a darker thematically, if not literally with lighting, but a really dark story this time around.

[03:47] I was told that I will personally probably cry multiple times. And I was like, all right. I mean, I believe you guys, especially for the characters that are established already. But we have Megs and Lucas, who I think are me, and just that they have new characters again.

[04:05] And there are new ways to learn about Marcus and Dom effectively, right? Like, how much do we actually know about? We know a lot about Marcus and Dom, but we don't know about, like, young Marcus and, like, what his motivations were at the time.

[04:17] Or I guess more of, like, at the time of relative peace? Like, that's so weird. Between wars, as it turns out. Between wars, but also in time of mourning, because he's mourning his best friend. which they keep emphasizing and I think that's really cool

[04:29] that they kind of bring up that tie between Marcus and Dom in that they're they didn't know each other but they're not like as close as they are. Yeah, Carlos is apparently the glue that kind of holds their friendship together. Like Carlos is there

[04:41] and then obviously if you guys noticed in the show my favorite thing was that Dom just like is on the phone and he's all smiley he's like talking to Maria you're talking to your girl she's alive she's healthy she's okay and but we know

[04:54] we know if you are I'm not going to spoil it just in case there's some very not good stuff happening for Dom soon. Dion Maria. So it's just like, yeah. Anyway, I'm just like so stoked to see what they're going to do there

[05:06] and how the rest of Bravo Squad are going to do and how that going to work out as far as like the rest of the franchise And like speaking of this play is so different like this is mechanically going to be quite a different gear i think they also you know specifically it like

[05:22] you know our camera instead of zooming in to do the roadie run they pan out like it's a lighter run yeah how did you feel about that because i'm going to be honest that was the one thing when they explained i showed it and explained it i was like i'm as a big gear fan i'm not i'm not into that

[05:38] Only because Roadie Run is so uniquely Gears. I've not really seen that in another game, so I'm sure when I play the game, it'll be fine, and I'll have a great time with the game. But how did you feel about the omission of Roadie Run

[05:53] in favor of a more traditional follow sprint camera? I wonder if it's just something that works better with the tech changes of how they're doing cover, but also maybe to be a bit more welcoming to even more people.

[06:05] They've been refining how movement works in Gears constantly, like five is of course different from four different from three and i i do like roadie run i think it's just heavy it's good it feels good it's so geared you know like that is a gear string

[06:20] but at the same time i'm open to seeing how this changes and if it does benefit the gameplay i think of course that i love that they just get on the ground for cover like i'm like yeah that's cool it's just cool to see how evolution and jumping they also said there's no i know just deviating

[06:35] a bit, is that there's no platforming. Like, it's not, you're not thinking of platforming puzzles. Thank you. Yeah, I'm definitely a bigger fan of those changes to the movement and to the cover mechanics, because I think

[06:47] Michael Hyam was saying it on our Unlocked post-show back on, right after the Xbox showcase, that Gears mechanics have been pretty fundamentally the same for all these years, and they've been great. It's a great system,

[06:59] but, yeah, now we can kind of, we've got the slide, and you can slide into cover, and apparently it's just one button. Like, it automatically, you don't have to, like, hit another button to then go into cover.

[07:11] And yeah, the low cover that you were talking about, where you'll be able to kind of, like, kind of be almost thrown, and then leaning up and shooting. So, that should just freshen up the gameplay

[07:23] a little bit, I think. Yeah, also that came up in my session, so we were in different sessions. Was that wall balancing doesn't really work the same anymore, talking about cover and how that shifts? So that's going to shift multiplayer meta quite a bit, where obviously if you're really good at role balancing, you

[07:37] do some cool stuff. They said it's not as dominant as a strategy, because they just want to balance that with new mechanics and let people discover this place and play differently. So I again open to that I like to see what new Obviously there new weapons so there going to be new ways to play as far as that And the strategy goes for multiplayer if you really interested in that Yeah lots of changes And I sure there so much more that we don even know about yet

[08:00] Like, we only saw so much, like, this early gameplay, obviously. It's like, as emergency is happening, and you can tell we're kind of cutting through some stuff. I guess the other thing, too, as far as, like, changes that we do or don't like, active reloads now, center screen.

[08:13] I don't like it. I don't like that. But they said, you can switch it back. You can put it back up in the corner if you don't want it right in your face. And I think it in there is really great for new players who just don't know about after reload and want to see the benefits immediately because it shows you're thinking,

[08:28] if you do have to look back at the top corner to see that still. But I think that's still a welcoming way to say, hey, this is an important thing. Learn how to do this. And for everyone who already knows, just put it in the corner.

[08:40] My muscle memory, my eyes are trained to just check, just set that top right corner. And I guess we can kind of finish on a quick multiplayer point. We didn't see multiplayer, but we did learn about the 12-player mode of Evolution of Horde.

[08:57] Yeah, three squads of four, 12 players. And the whole game is built around four players. So the PvP modes are also, they're all 4v4-based.

[09:09] And then I guess the last point would be, I guess it was the public knowledge. I mean, they showed it to us in the presentation, people may already know. but August 6th for the first beta weekend. Yeah, so as a huge Gears fan,

[09:21] after getting to talk to the developers a little bit, see a little bit more, has your hype level gone up? Like, where are you at now heading into, as we ramp towards October 6th and the release of this thing?

[09:34] Way up. Like, I obviously love Dolman Marcus. I love their relationship, and getting more time with them, it's huge. It's huge. So I know when they first announced it, I was a little bummed,

[09:47] because I really wanted to see where Kate's story is going, and I still want to see that. But I like that we get to see more of some of the faves. Yeah, I did ask, well, are we ever going to finish Kate's story?

[10:00] And knowing that they were going to just sweep that aside because they want to talk about this game, and that's fine. I'm super down for the prequel, too. I'm happy to have Dom and Marcus back together, and maybe we'll finish Kate's story one day.

[10:12] Maybe it'll show up in like a novel or a comic book or something, some extended piece of Gears 4. But that'll do it from the Xbox Showcase and Gears of War E-Day.

[10:24] For more on all things Gears, all things Xbox, all things video games, keep it tuned right here to IGN.