Gears of War developers wish for more profound franchise

Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War has been a major success for the team at Epic Games, but lead designer Cliff Bleszinski has started to express his desire to aim for a more serious tone for the series. Rather than continue the blood-and-guts motif, Bleszinski hopes to bring a more profound "Christopher Nolan" type experience to the table.

Speaking with Penny Arcade, the pseudo-celebrity designer discussed the impracticality of continuing along with a series that has largely been known for hulking muscles and hyper-masculinity.

"If I were to pass Gears off to another studio, and they came back with a pitch of having a double-edged chainsaw, and the characters are more buff, and now you can pull off someone's head and s*** down their neck, and they had a character that makes Cole look tame… I would look at them and say, 'No, you're going in the exact wrong direction.'"

"Gears is always some of that, but I would want to further evolve it in more of a Christopher Nolan way," he stressed.

Epic Games has already moved away from the Gears of War franchise, having recently unveiled Fortnite at last year's Spike Video Game Awards. The studio is also hard at work on Unreal Engine 4, and while the press could not glimpse the next engine, the tech was shown off behind closed doors at GDC last week.