Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski has commented on E-Day, expressing his confidence in the game returning the series to its roots.
Speaking during an interview on the Xbox Expansion Pass YouTube channel, Cliff Bleszinski mentioned that he is pleased with the direction the series is headed in with Gears of War E-Day. He talked about how how JD and Dell and the whole cast of Gears 4 and Gears 5, while good, didn’t resonate with fans as much as the original Delta Squad.
Bleszinski mentioned that Marcus showing back up, along with Baird, was a good idea for Gears of War 4 and 5. However, killing Anya was a mistake akin to the Alien 3 three style of killing off major characters. His reaction to the trailer was mixed; it felt strange to get goosebumps from something he helped create. He said that the trailer played the Gears fan base perfectly, and by the third viewing, he noticed that when Marcus struggles with the drone, it re-used the music from the Maria scene with Dom and Maria, which is a clever callback in his view. Additionally, the few chords of Mad World that played when Dom rescued Marcus dovetailed back into Dom’s sacrifice in Gears of War 3.
According to Bleszinski, it’s a bit self-indulgent for him to feel emotional about something he helped create, but he said that Gears was his “baby”, and he felt good knowing that it’s in good hands. They recalled numerous Easter eggs in the trailer, like the newspaper headline “The war is over” referring to the Pendulum Wars. The Gears of War creator referred to the moment Marcus grabs a TV and smashes the drone with it as “epic”, and he hoped that it is an in-game move. He pointed out that Marcus and Dom didn’t meet Baird and Cole until the first Gears of War, which was 14 years after E-Day. He suspects that there might be a separate side plot for the latter two characters, and that the first chapter in E-Day might depict the Pendulum Wars, which is something fans have been wanting to see for a long time.
