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Cliff Bleszinski said goodbye to Gears of War four years ago, but I'm not sure he's left it behind. We're sitting in a curtained-off area of the showfloor below the offices of Bosskey Productions - the studio Bleszinski founded in 2014 with former Guerilla Games development director and Jazz Jackrabbit coder Arjan Brussee. On the other side of the cloth, a community manager thunders exhortations as journalists get to grips with a pre-alpha build of LawBreakers, Bosskey's hectic, highly involved arena shooter. Within, I ask for Bleszinski's thoughts on Gears of War 4's recent story teaser, a beat-by-beat reprise of the legendary "Mad World" trailer that first marked Gears out as more than the usual triple-A mess of gore and gristle, and Bleszinski himself as one of the industry's brighter stars.For my money, the new trailer is the work of a developer that's too preoccupied with the glory days. Bleszinski's take is kinder. They are, after all, his glory days. "When I saw that trailer - I don't know if you read those tweets, but I was fortunate enough to get the hook-up for the Game of Thrones premiere in Los Angeles," he recalls. "This is a show that has mirrored my relationship with my wife. When we first started dating we were watching Thrones, and it's so cheesy but I see my wife as the Khaleesi, our dogs as the dragons - it's so stupid. But going to see that show we love so much, in the very theatre where I demo'd Gears of War 1 to Bill Gates, and then to go home and for that trailer to drop, when I'm a little tipsy back at the hotel... I got pretty misty."
"Gears - sure, it's a dudebro game," he continues, over a chorus of whoops and explosions from the showfloor. "But underneath, it's all about family. [Epic's former director of production] Rod Fergusson lost his father at an early age, so did [former senior gameplay designer] Lee Perry and myself. We talked about Marcus having a son, and to see him in that trailer all Wolverine-style by his cabin, planting a tree for his kid, giving the kid a new beginning... Sometimes I rewatch the final cutscene from Gears 3, you know, because to some extent I always saw myself as Marcus and my wife as Anya, to see them holding hands and her saying 'we have a tomorrow, now'. And the fact that they named the Gears 4 trailer 'Tomorrow' - that was really powerful for me. It's going to be weird playing that game without having worked on it, but it's also cool to not know where it's going. I just hope they do the series justice, and make a Gears for 2016, because the franchise feels to some extent very 2006."
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