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Epic is going all-out to ensure that Gears of War 3 will be playable by regular human beings: the developer is hoping the third game in the Microsoft-only franchise will be the most “accessible to date”.
Talking to VideoGamer.com at a recent London event, Epic executive producer Rod Fergusson said “yeah, I think definitely Gears has a hardcore reputation from a multiplayer perspective.”
What does that mean, though? “The true core of our hardcore are people who wall bounce the shotguns; they’re very dominating. That’s one of the reasons we created the casual mode, to give people a place to go and learn before they encounter those players.”
For the record, wall bouncing is when you flick from cover to cover at lightning speed. I don’t need to explain the shotgun to you.
“We’re really focused on making Gears 3 the most accessible version,” said Fergusson. “If you’re a new player and you’ve never played a Gears game before and you’re like ‘where do I start?’ from a gameplay perspective we want you to start with [Gears of War] 3.”
Casual mode – a new multiplayer lobby introduced in Gears of War 3 – is intended to make it easier for non-regular players. “The easy way to think about it is whether you’re a minnow or a shark. If you’re a minnow we want you to be able to play with other minnows, and if you get good enough to become a shark then you can move up. It’s not something you’re forced to do, but you cannot as a shark play with the minnows.”
But will it be possible for players to stick to Casual mode forever?
“For the most part, yeah, if you’ve never played before and you go into it you can stay there for a long time. But it really comes down to your skill – that’s what we’re trying to measure. You can still be a minnow, you can still be in the casual mode and be successful, but if you start dominating, and you’re starting to hurt the experience of other players, that’s when we say you’re good enough and you have to move up to the big leagues.”
“We have an algorithm in the back,” added Fergusson, “which will monitor your progress on how you play and how well you’re doing. Based on that, that’s how we decide whether to move you up.”
In single-player – of which I’ve previewed the first Act of the game – Epic confirmed that Normal difficulty is a little easier in Gears of War 3 than it was in Gears of War 2.
“If you’ve played Gears before than you should play on Hardcore,” said Fergusson.
But what about Insane difficulty? “Insane is definitely insane. We don’t really worry so much about balancing insane, but can it get completed – as long as even one tester can make it through the game on Insane then we’ll ship it. It’s not about finding that perfect balance it’s about making it as hard as possible but still doable. All the other three modes we really focus on trying to find a balance of difficulty.”
How many testers have managed to do Gears of War 3 on Insane, then? “We have a really good test team,” said Fergusson.
Gears of War 3 will be released for Xbox 360 on September 20.
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