You really didn’t think Gears of War 3 was going to be the last game in one of the best cover shooter franchises out there, did you? Gears of War: Judgment is coming early next year and it’s bringing with it a new prequel story, a new developer and a new set of protagonists.
Gears of War: Judgment is from the guys at People Can Fly, the team behind the Painkiller games and Bulletstorm. They also developed additional content for Gears of War and gears of War 2.
Gears of War: Judgment will be set before the events of the first game and will focus on Kilo Squad, whose members include series favorites Damon Baird and Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, a team accused of treason after a battle with the Locust at Halvo Bay.
Last July, OXM reported that Gears of war: Judgment was getting a new mode called “OverRun,” a mode which mixes elements from its predecessors’ Beast and Horde modes and will see teams playing as the Locust alternately. Epic’s Rod Fergusson explains that this was a mode they tried to do with Gears of War 3 but couldn’t make it work correctly:
“People kept asking how come we can’t have Horde versus Beast, and we tried it but certain things about it just didn’t work the way we wanted with Gears 3. So when we had a chance to work on a new product with Gears of War: Judgement we said ‘let’s revisit that and see what we need to do to make that work’. And sure enough this class-based system really solidifies the design and makes it work really well.”
In addition to the ‘OverRun’ mode, People Can Fly will also be adding free-for-all multiplayer, the first time that the Gears of War franchise will be getting a competitive mode that won’t be team based. This should certainly change the dynamics of online play.
Gears of War: Judgment will be hitting the shelves on March 19, 2013.