In light of the recent release of Gears of War: E-Day, we got the chance to sit down with The Coalition’s Design Director Raul Figueroa and Senior Producer Vee Nyarko to discuss the inspirations behind this new prequel, and even their favourite Gears games.
Hi Raul and Vee, we hope you’re well, and we thank you for taking the time to chat with us here at The AU Review.
I’m a massive Gears of War fan, and I’m (unfortunately) old enough to have vivid memories of owning and playing the original Gears on the Xbox 360! It’s one of my favourite games on that console, and I still go back every couple of years to play through the entire series.
I personally loved Gears of War: E-Day, and we gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars in our own review. But above all, it’s just lovely to see the series return.
Vee: Thank you so much!
What were the inspirations behind Gears of War: E-Day and bringing the franchise back in time to the prequel setting?
Raul: Yeah, for sure. When we finished Gears 5, the world was in a very different place than we started. And we, we had to take a step back during the pandemic, and we were going to go into Unreal 5 as new technology was coming up. So we really took a step back and thought, OK, what is it that we really want to do with this franchise? What does this franchise mean to players? What does it mean to us? We spent a lot of time digging into those deep philosophical questions. And at the end of the day, we came up with the idea of going back to E-Day to tell that origin story of the Locust and the first time that they come out of the ground, going back to Marcus and Dom, but telling us a story about how they came to be the Marcus and Dom that we love and know from the first trilogy. So it was just a natural thing. We went where we felt the passion was in the team. And as we can see now that the game is out with the with the fans as well.
Vee: Yeah, exactly. And it’s, I think it’s a really, it was really great opportunity because so much of Gears, I mean, the entirety of Gears actually is surrounding this one event, which you never get to experience. And so it almost seemed, in a way, like a no-brainer to be able to experience something so pivotal as the catalyst to all of the Gears games, which is, you know, where you get the first origin story essentially that people have only ever sort of created like different types of media and even some fanfics about. So it was something that we were really passionate about and wanted to make sure we could bring that to life. And we finally had the tools and tech needed to do so. So it felt like just the right time.
What lessons have you learned from previous Gears games that you felt could be applied to E-Day as well?
Raul: We have a team that has worked on Gears for a while, and there’s a lot of expertise on what Gears is. We definitely as we look, as we look back, we identified what is the core of Gears. Obviously, Gears of War is a third-person shooter. It’s a cover shooter, one of the original cover shooters that actually set the standards Co op couch Co op being with a squad. So we wanted to make sure that we took all of those elements and brought them to E-Day and then added an extra layer on top so that we could evolve the formula and take it to the next level. So that, you know, it feels like I’m in a more modern game.
Vee: Gears has always been about the strong bonds that move us forward amidst harrowing loss, amidst harrowing times like this, the overall destruction. And so I think that’s one of the things that we’ve taken from the previous games as well. Of course, going into E-Day, we know there’s going to be considerable loss. The city of Kelowna is absolutely ravaged by E Day, but the way in which Gears has always handled loss has always been on top of, or at the bottom of, this layer of brotherhood, about this layer of loyalty and trust and pulling each other forward together. And that’s something that we wanted to make sure that we brought into this, this new version of the squad and all of the other squads that you interact with, with Theta Squad as well, and with all of the other squads that you sort of come into on your journey. There are a lot of different characters that you meet in E-Day. We have quite the cast, but all of them serve the overall purpose of you not doing it by yourself.
So what’s your favourite new feature or edition from Gears of War: E-Day?
Raul: Oh nice. Yeah, I mean for me, I really love the addition of the verticality, climbing and jumping because it it allowed us to evolve the the combat post formula formula in the game. The level design team took those features and created much more dynamic encounters that we were not going to be able to do in previous games. So it really shook the formula so that players that had been playing the game for so long would come in and play this one and say, oh, there’s something different here. There’s something unique that I’ve never experienced before. And I think that’s at the base of it. It’s, it lets you experience this, this, this Locust horde as a completely new enemy just because of that minor addition, minor addition that took a while to nail down.
Vee: Yeah, I, it’s a think the verticality is a pretty close second. I like having more ways to explore and more ways to enter different combat encounters. I would say probably my favourite is like extra low cover, like low, low, low cover, destructible cover is I think just makes the overall combat more believable and also keeps you on the front lines longer in a way that you can kind of choose whether or not you want to take that extra, that extra chance, that extra risk, or if you want to find additional cover or push back. And I think having that level of agency to move forward and play, push up or play more dangerously or take additional risks or stay out just a little bit longer is something that I don’t put a bit more attention to the overall, like gears and counters, as I’m in Gears combat. So I think that would be my favourite.
Aside from Gears of War: E-Day, what is your favourite Gears game?
Raul: I think it’s an easy one for me. Gears 2; it’s always at the top for me. I mean, the rift war, Dom and Maria, the Scourge going into the hollows, just all the things that we learned there, and just the pace of that game was just impeccable. So, you know, we always look back and think about it as inspiration.
Vee: Yeah, I agree. But I think of, of course, after E-Day, it’d be Gears 2. There’s something so special about the different ways of playing and just like the things you can do. You’re like on a reverse you’re doing. It’s just Marcus and Dom doing crazy stuff. And just also that feeling of scale. I think Gears 2 does a really good job of making you feel like you’re part of a larger company in this fight against the Locust. Like whether or not you’re meeting Dizzy on, like, one of the derricks or, you know, you’re going and meeting up with Ty or, like Raul said, going to the hall. There’s just something about the scale of the full force of the Cong that’s existing at that time that I think Gears 2 does extremely, extremely well. And it always touches my heart when I encounter that moment with Marcus and Dom and using to either go to the Nexus or go to the Locust Highway or go to find Maria. And that’s just. Yeah, guys, still, still gives me chills.
A huge thanks again, Raul and Vee, for taking the time to chat with us today, and congratulations on the launch of Gears of War: E-Day!
Vee: Thanks so much, Matt!
Raul: Thank you!
Gears of War: E-Day is out now on Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC. Check out our full review here.
