MAKING GEARS
AN ESPORTbeginning – we didn’t want to water
down their experience – so we added
in new multiplayer modes for the new
players instead. We still have Versus,
Escalation, and all of the things they
know and love, but then we also have
new stuff like Arcade and Escape.”
Escalating multiplayer
That’s why there are so many modes
available in Gears 5. For the core
audience, you’ve got Versus; for the
co-op fans, there’s Escape and Horde;
for the players looking for PvP with a
lower skill ceiling, there’s Arcade; for
those eager to get really competitive,
there’s Escalation. That last mode is
critical to Gears 5’s ongoing success,
with esports acting as a vehicle to not
only drive competition through the
game at all levels but get the eyes of
the world on it too.
“The important thing is that you
should feel like you can just jump
in and play online, if you don’t think
you’re going to be the best big player,”
says Rose Gunson, esports creative
program manager at Microsoft. “If
you’re somebody who doesn’t want to
play but wants to watch, that’s totally
another option – just tune in! We will be
running weekly contests and streams,
and of course we will have major
events. We’ve made this game to give
you a ton of opportunities; we want you
to jump in at whatever level you feel
comfortable playing.”
Rose Gunson on how The Coalition emphasised
competitive play with Gears 5’s multiplayerWas Gears 5 built to be an esport?
We have been able to work with the Gears 5 multiplayer
team from the beginning to make sure that our esports
mode is the most entertaining esport mode that we could
possibly deliver. We introduced Escalation in Gears Of War 4;
while we made that as entertaining as we could at the time,
it has grown as we have gotten feedback from the players
and the viewers.What sets Escalation apart from traditional multiplayer?
Escalation is really built around this concept of, ‘What is
it that people like to watch?’ It’s developed around that
concept because we want people to feel a certain type of
energy. You need to know the stakes, you want to see the
team you’re rooting for playing, you want to see people
knocked out – it has that competition that you would see
in traditional sports that people get excited about, which is
head-to-head competition.How are you working to give more fans a way to get into
Gears 5 as an esport?
With Gears 5, you are going to see more opportunities
where you can view, play, and attend events. You’re going
to be able to choose how you want to engage with this side
of the game and how you want to be a part of it all. We’re
really excited about it.For Gears 5 to survive long after
launch, as it has been built to do,
it needed flexibility in its offering. It
also needed flexibility with respect
to its content delivery systems, and
that’s something The Coalition is
extremely dedicated to delivering.
“Right from the beginning of making
multiplayer for Gears 5, we looked at
it as a service,” Cleven explains. “It’s
actually the service over time that
people are playing, right? People want
to know what they are looking forward
to playing tomorrow, what they are
looking forward to playing next week;
to the next big expansion or whatever
it may be, there’s always this time
component to it.
“To be able to bring people back time
and time again, we wanted to make
sure that players have something
to look forward to. That’s why we
created the idea of Operations,”
Cleven continues, noting that while
the concept shares similarities with a
Season – like you might see in Fortnite
or Apex Legends – it’s designed to
be more flexible, to let The Coalition
respond to the wants and needs of
a community that could forever be
changing shape.
That, Cleven says, is the future
of Gears 5. This is a game that will
continue to evolve, expanding to meet
the needs of the community, and
lock players into the action for the
foreseeable future. “It’s something that
we see as being really exciting for Gears
players, that the game they’re going to
be playing in two years is based on the
game they are playing now, sure, but
it’s going to have a lot more stuff in it,”
Cleven highlights, adding: “The hope is
that, over time, we’re going to be able
to pick up new players, and that we’ll
have a game richer and deeper than it
was at launch.” QLEFT Kait, Fahz,
JD and the rest
of Delta Squad
tool up in
preparation for
esports Gears.
GEARS 5
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