Gears of War 3 news and discussion

Gears of War 3 was announced earlier this week, leading to a lot speculation and hype.


Was that Anya in the trailer? Double-barreled shotgun? Frozen people? Some, if not a lot, of your questions are about to be answered.
*NOTE* This comes directly from EPIC's website, so the intel is solid.

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Campaign Information
Features

* Rod confirmed 4 Player Co-Op in the Gears IRC, with 4 unique characters. Rod confirmed that co-op includes Marcus, Dom, Cole, Baird and a "variety of other characters". Cliff confirms that at some points in the game you will play as an entirely different squad (that includes no Marcus and no Dom).

Story

* The story is written by fantastic author Karen Traviss, who wrote the Gears of War book series
* Set 18 months after Gears of War 2, and after the fourth Gears of War book.
* The Coalition has disbanded or dismantled. Everyone is essentially a Stranded.
* The Locust have not been seen in the time that has passed since the end of Gears 2 and the beginning of Gears 3
* The location shown in the "Ashes to Ashes" trailer is a location nicknamed 'Char', where the remains of victims from the Hammer of Dawn strikes are heavily present.
* Imulsion is infecting everything, not just the Locust. The Lambent are a ton of different nightmarish creatures.
* Cliff talks about the underlying themes of Gears of War 3 in the Techland Interview:

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Originally Posted by Cliff Bleszinski
So, in Gears 2 we had the themes of Dom and Maria and in Gears 3, you'll learn more about Marcus' relationship with his father and Dom dealing with the aftermath of what he's done [in Gears 2]

Weapons

* The Lancer, Hammerburst and Gnasher shotgun have been confirmed to be returning.
* The Hammerburst now has a scope on it. Lee Perry expands:

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry View Post
To some degree. Take into account that the goal is to make lots of tactics effective and viable, not biased to one particular tactic. Things like the new scope that people have noticed on the HB plays into that. If things are more effective up close, they will be more effective from afar as well.

* The Pendulum Lancer is in Gears of War 3. Lee Perry describes how it plays in more detail:

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry
Think primative very powerful AK that bucks like a mule and you're on a closer track. Not something you'll be using across a map, but definitely something that can stop a clumsy rush.

* Some information on the Gnasher from Lee Perry:

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry View Post
I've definitely never said the gnasher was less powerful, that's your words The Gnasher is very likely still the weapon of choice for most good shotty players; not being at the far end of the "specific range role" spectrum, it's a much more general purpose weapon.

* A Double Barrelled Shotgun was spotted in the Ashes to Ashes trailer. Lee Perry expands:

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry
FWIW, that weapon didn't exist until several hundred pages of the shotgun mechanic thread. That doesn't really give much away, considering the VAST amount of conflicting opinions in that thread; but the opinions in that thread definitely helped shape the weapon.

Haha, I wonder if we could have made a trailer with basically a slow camera pan down a new shotgun and had about the same amount of interest from existing players, hahha.

Another quote from Lee about the DBS regarding it's performance:

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry
I think it's a logical conclusion that a stubby sawn off shotgun would have a wide spread and very short range. Those are both advantages and

disadvantages though, and the balancing factors should be fairly self evident.
Cliff also confirms in the MeriStation TV interview (posted in the videos section) that the new shotgun does more damage but has a lower range and slower reload time than the Gnasher shotgun

Characters

* Dom is now heavily bearded. According to Rod, this is due to his problems dealing with the loss of his wife.
* Anya is the female COG soldier seen in the "Ashes to Ashes" trailer. We will learn more on her transition from pencil pusher to soldier throughout the books.

Enemies

* Lambent Locust: These enemies mutate and transform as you fight them.

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Multiplayer Information

Balancing

* Lee Perry expands on the balancing of the shotgun and rifles in terms of range.

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry
Honestly that was the biggest takeaway from this thread that made it happen. Alaska's comments about the shotty getting so many kills not because it's overpowered, but simply because there aren't other real options in that range bracket were really formative.

If you lay out the shotties and rifles in terms of variety based on ranges, it looks something like this:

Sawn off -> Shotgun -> Pendulum Lancer -> Lancer -> Hammerburst.

Even the Pendulum Lancer ("Retro Lancer" to many) eats into the Gnasher's "longer" range distances (nearly a halfbreed between a rifle and shotty). I just want to see more options in the close quarters game than just melee and shotties and chainsaws. People who are great with a shotgun are still going to be great with a shotgun.

I've probably said too much even with that, but hopefully it'll give you some insight into where we're looking.

* Lee Perry also discusses how in Gears 3, you should pick your starting weapons carefully based on the chosen map
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Originally Posted by Lee Perry View Post
One drive is to make the decision to pick a specific weapon meaningful and not just a static player preference. Right now I don't believe people pick different loadouts based on something like a map or planned tactic, they simply pick the rifle they "like" best. We want to see people noting what map is coming up next, and changing their loadout accordingly because weapons have a real role to them and are more appropriate for the circumstance. Quinn DelHoyo is a newer Level Designer here who really pushed for this philosophy and it turned out to really clarify the weapons.

* Stopping Power returns, according to Cliff's Twitter. (Thanks D.Kan91)

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Originally Posted by Cliff Bleszinski
Stopping power stays

Loadouts

* In response to a question about Loadouts, Lee Perry seems to confirm that you can now choose your starting rifle (Lancer / Pendulum Lancer / Hammerburst) and your starting shotgun (Sawn Off / Gnasher).

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Originally Posted by Lee Perry
I think we're all dancing around the same fire here. What you describe is what I might call "picking your loadout", it's just mincing terms. We know we don't want 50 rifles and such to invalidate weapon pickups.

Matchmaking

* Cliff confirmed they are tackling the bad matchmaking issues in Gears of War 3 in the Meristation TV interview. He mentions improved region filtering as one of the ways they are addressing this issue.
* There will be a new feature that allows players to stay together as a party. Details will be released later. This presumably covers random people you meet in matchmaking, as Gears already allows for group matchmaking.


Maps

* Cliff confirmed in the MeriStation TV interview that Gears of War 3 will include some old Gears of War 1 favorites that we didn't see in Gears of War 2

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Horde Information
Currently no information.

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New Feature Information

Moves

* In the MeriStation TV interview, Cliff says there will be a ton of new executions in the game this time round and there will be an incentive for using them in multiplayer.
* In the MeriStation TV interview, Cliff confirms you can kick someone as your vault over cover.

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Screenshots
Currently no released screenshots.

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Videos

[APRIL 15TH] Rod Fergusson talks Gears 3 and Epic on Raleigh's Local News! Video Link
[APRIL 13TH] MeriStation TV Interview with Cliff: Part 1 / Part 2 (Thanks ThrenodyCreed)
[APRIL 13TH] Gears of War "Ashes to Ashes" Trailer in HD / SD / YouTube (Thanks Renegade)
[APRIL 13TH] Cliff reveals Gears of War 3 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon!

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Community Suggestions

Simburgur has a comprehensive library of community suggestions for Gears 3 going. Click HERE for the thread.

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Gears Universe Announcements

Avatar Gear
Avatar clothing items will be released for Gears of War 3 on April 20th 2010. Some of these items will be based on the new armor shown in the trailers - image previews of these can be found below. (Thanks Dikon67)
Dom Example / Anya Example

Books
There will be a fourth book set after the upcoming third book Anvil Gate but before the beginning of Gears of War 3. No further details have been released.

So that's the info. Pretty sweet, I'm lovin' things like the Pendulum Lancer and mantle kick move.
Also, in the Techland interview, Cliff said female gears, not just Anya. he mentioned Anya, and that she's fighting now, but he also said female gears. We can assume from this that there'll be more girls who'll be revealed as playable in the third game.
Personally, I'm hoping Alex is in it. Alex is the Gear in my avatar, who was in issue 9 of the Gears of War comic.