Gears Judgement was to be a lot more ambitious

Actually, Adrian Chmielarz, the former head of People Can Fly, had wanted to inject Dark Souls inspired elements into it.

You can read about it below:

In the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine, former creative director (and current CD of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter developer The Astronauts) Adrian Chmielarz reveals he wanted make something with a little Hidetaka Miyazaki in its DNA. "I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to lead Gears of War: Judgment for almost two years – so many great memories of the screams and the guts spilled," he says. "My only regret is that the game as released and the game I had in mind are quite different. We knew Judgment was a one-off, so I wanted to use that opportunity to take some risks. I wanted Gears: Dark Souls Edition, a really hard, nerve-racking, ‘blood, sweat and tears’ kind of game in which you felt exhausted after a battle. There was also one crucial innovative gameplay mechanic removed from the final release, and a few other mechanics and design points that were altered to be somewhat safer."

One of those riskier designs was removing the clear signposts that introduced new enemies. "As an example, Judgment reveals new enemy types in a typical way: a cutscene kicks in and the monster presents itself and does something that explains its powers or abilities," explains Chmielarz. "Then we return to gameplay, knowing what we’re dealing with. It’s a good solution, but I wanted the initial confusion. The player was to be surprised and unsure about how to deal with the enemy. But I don’t know if my version was better. It was just different. People say they want innovation, but what they often really want is the same, just with a fresh wrapper. So maybe Epic was right to change Judgment to be more like Gears 3.5. Who knows?"

http://www.gamesradar.com/gears-war-judgment-was-nearly-dark-souls-series/

What do you think? I wonder what other mechanics he had in mind, though. I feel that this explains a lot when it comes to the state of the finished product. The whole power struggle between Epic and People Can Fly, the fact that very rarely was People Can Fly mentioned in the promotional materials which had been mostly mentioning Epic as its creators.

I think Chmielarz is an honest, insightful and ambitious person. I personally admire him as a human being. I’ve been following his endeavours since 1997-8 when he had a column in a Polish console magazine NEO+. I follow him on Facebook and he always has something interesting to say and is very interactive with his followers. It's a shame his vision couldn't have been realized.

Just to remind everyone, the worst Gears of War which was Judgement scored better than The Order 1886 which was five years in development for a brand new console. So much for Gears-killer when it's not even as good as the worst game. lol, what a failure.

Good job, Sony.

Nobody ask for a new Gears when Gears of War 3 was still fresh and MS announce it way too early which is why it got bad press. The same thing happen to God of War: Ascension. Both were prequels, announce way too early and both exclusive flop. That said, People Can Fly should have just made Bulletstorm 2.

Judgement was a fine game the way it was. No need to take away the fun.

Judgement is terrible and doesn't seem like a Gears game imo. It's terrible...terrible...terrible....terrible.

the campain was ok, not up to gears standards but still better then any other TPS on the market. the MP ws still awesome, the new mode (overrun) was great but i did miss having G3 horde mode. Don't know why it was left out. They added in a couple of new modes later as DLC. one was awesome, i think it was called master at arms? where you needed to get a kill with every weapon to win, if you killed yourself you went back 1 weapon. after the first 10 it got harder and harder until the final weapon which was the sword. Breakthrough was also a pretty awesome mode as well

to each their own, I sure didn't, but to be honest of the levels and enemies were better and the warwwolf fights and bosses were all better and it had co-op and PvP it could have almost been as good as gears. the order gunplay was solid, weapons were good, everything else was terrible. It was a lot like destiny, good gun play but everything else sucked

@Salt_The_Fries: I think he really nailed a lot of people with his comment about them saying they want innovation but in reality the want the same thing with a new wrapper. I see these nonsense, bullshit statements about how this isn't a true (game franchise) game when the creators do different things with it. Just a couple of days ago it was "it doesn't feel like an MGS game".

I always question prequels in games. Since they're story driven and games usually have to implement new mechanics/features every installment it feels weird that game where the story takes place at a much earlier date is more advanced.

And that game would have been scored today what would get? What would The Order get if it was released back then? You're logic makes very little sense other than it points out how much of a blind fanboy you seem to be.

Yeah the setting was awesome, but as someone who likes jack the ripper as you say, how can you be happy with the lack of fleshing anything story related out with him, or with the lack of vampires as nothing more then a mention? If I was a fan of the stuff like you say you are, I would have hated the game even more because they did no justice to it.

While I haven't played it, from what I've seen the game is designed like a series of forward progressing challenges rather than just being a solid seamless campaign. But, the idea of making it a series of challenges appeals to me rather than a casual narrative. From what I've seen, it's like fighting seems more challenging and they appear to throw a lot at the players which is appealing to me. Plus, they seem to push the number of enemies in any one scene up over previous entries. Plus, I HATED when they introduced Lambent into the Gears series, totally ruined the feel of the game; from what I've seen it's much more of a Locus based adversary in this game, which also appeals to me. It's probably the most visually impressive of the games given it was made last. Oh, and I've still yet to play it, so here's hoping when Gears gets BC support it plays well, and doesn't have performance issues.

I'm in the preview program and have been playing gears 1 on BC, it plays great

They really needed to do something with the gameplay and pacing as Gears did not age well at all. I'd say UC1 is even a more enjoyable experience compared to the games slog of a campaign.