5 facts you didn't know about gears
1 - Lieutenant Minh Young Kim from the original Gears of War was originally written as a supporting female character. And at one point in development, the team considered letting players choose the gender of one of the game's main characters, Dom Santiago. Dom would be playable as either Dominic or Dominique, depending the player's preference. While it was always a goal for the development team, playable female characters wouldn't actually make it into the game until Gears of War 3.
2 - Gears of War was originally conceived as a large-scale vehicle-based warfare game. The gameplay was largely multiplayer focused, and teams competed for resources to establish military bases across large battlefields. While that design was eventually abandoned in favor of the more intimate, cover-based gameplay, the ideas behind that gametype became the basis for the Onslaught mode in the game Unreal Tournament 2004, and were eventually flushed out even further in the Warfare game in Unreal Tournament 3.
3 - In the original reveal trailers for Gears of War, Marcus was not only voiced by an entirely different actor, but his model was completely redone before shipping. Dom was renamed from Dom Glynn to Dom Santiago. And Cole and Baird's roles were originally reversed, with Baird in the role of a sports star reminiscent of David Beckham. The development team later gravitated toward actor Jamie Foxx in the movie Any Given Sunday as the archetype for Cole. Even the series' signature weapons changed roles, as the Hammerburst rifle at one point had a drill attached to the front as a counterpoint to the Lancer's signature chainsaw bayonet
4 - General Raam, one of the most beloved game "bosses" of all time, was a last-minute addition who almost didn't make it into the game. Due to time constraints and production deadlines, the entire story as to why and how you were on the train to fight him was cut from the original release, and wasn't added back in until the release of Gears of War for the PC. While Raam has been voted a favorite game character in many public polls, his full story remains to be told
5 - Several of the main characters in the Gears of War series are based on the life experiences of the Epic development team. Augustus Cole, a.k.a. "The Cole Train," was named after Phil Cole, a level designer at Epic Games. Damon Baird was named after a childhood friend of Epic's design director, Cliff Bleszinski. Even the infamous General Raam was named after the owner of a local Indian restaurant frequented by Epic's staff. The back story of the game's main protagonist, Marcus Fenix, and several other themes present throughout the series, were influenced by the life stories of Bleszinski, Epic's executive producer Rod Fergusson and a few other team members who poured their hearts and soulsinto the making of the game.
SOURCES:USA TODAY