Gears of War Judgment has Pixar input

Gears of War has never really been put on a pedestal with titles such as Half Life and Assassin's Creed when it comes to developing a story. While many are quite fond of the franchise, the reigning notion is that the game does more for third-person shooter mechanics than anything else. This has troubled series producer Rod Fergusson and creative lead Cliff Bleszinski for some time.

Of course, with the new push for Gears of War: Judgment, the team at Epic and People Can Fly are really aiming to bolster more character building and storytelling. Rod Fergusson sat down with Game Informer to talk about not only Epic's motivations, but the idea of motivations for their characters in the game.

"We've been trying to improve on storytelling since we started," said Fergusson. "And this seemed like a natural way of getting a little bit of insight into how what we consider to be the best in the industry."

The team got the chance to learn from Pixar, who talked about the value of character motivation. Fergusson relates to Toy Story, and how the protagonist Woody is always fighting against the fear of abandonment in all three titles. He goes on to describe how characters such as Cole and Baird will have more of their motivations pressed within Judgment, more so than in the original trilogy.

That said, the game is not going to leave its hallmarks behind. Gamers can expect to take a more interactive approach to cutscenes, with what Fergusson describes as 'embedded storytelling.' The idea is to push the story play out before the gamer within playable portions of the game. The other major storytelling area is on 'Testimony,' where you will hear the main characters narrate their experiences from within the game.

Judgment has no solid release date at this time. As for Pixar, their latest film, Brave, has been doing well financially. The movie, which has had major input from Disney veterans, has not been reviewed as well as previous titles, narrowly beating out ratings for Pixar's Cars 2.