Rumor: Multiple playable characters in Gears 2 campaign

by Richard Mitchell { May 22nd 2008 at 2:00PM }

Oh ~~CliffyB~~ Cliff Bleszinski, it seems you're always almost confirming features in Gears of War 2. First there was the "four co-op players" vs "for co-op players" mix-up, and now this. In a recent interview with Gamerscore Blog, Cliff more or less stated that players would not be strictly confined to playing as Marcus in Gears of War 2. "You're basically being Marcus and you're being other squad members throughout the campaign," said Bleszinski. The statement came in response to a question regarding squad commands (at about 2:00 in the video), which were utilized rarely in Gears of War and have been removed entirely from Gears of War 2. While it certainly seems more clear-cut than the four player co-op mix-up, there is still the possibility that Bleszinski was referring to co-op squad members, similar to how Dom was controlled by the second player during co-op sessions in the original game.

Still, switching between characters would be in keeping with assertions that Gears of War 2 will have a deeper storyline. We can already imagine situations where playing as another character would add significant depth to the story (such as Dom's search for his wife). The only question now is whether or not the second level will have gamers playing as a Locust.

[Via OXM UK]

Gears of War 2 was just one of the many games Microsoft showed off at this year's Xbox 360 Spring Showcase. Check out our hands-on impressions from the event.

Tags: epic, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, gow2, mgs, microsoft-game-studios

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

J-MART @ May 22nd 2008 2:18PM

Please dont go the Halo 2 route!

DBoyFlex @ May 22nd 2008 2:42PM

Agreed. I disliked very much the use of arbitor in H2. Kinda ruined it for me. I couldn't care less about the invisibility. Anyways, I thought that ruined the campaign in H2. I believe it would go the same way in Gears 2. I only want to play on the COG side, none of this locus stuff.

zero @ May 22nd 2008 2:20PM

Playing as Locust could be interesting. Assuming there was some benefit other than appearance that is.

emirabal @ May 22nd 2008 2:23PM

Heres how i take all this, Dominic is gonna have to rescue Marcus from some locust jail and you have to play as other members of the squad.

THIS GAME IS GONNA BE SO BIGGER AND BADDER

Neuromancer @ May 22nd 2008 2:29PM

That's a perfect idea to expand the already incredibly deep Gears of War 2 universe. The locusts could have a group of rebel locusts who don't want to come out of the emergence holes and kill humans for absoultely no reason on a planet inexplicably not Earth.

The second level of GoW2 could have you as a locust being forced by the head locust council into ferreting out these rebels and killing them, and at the end of the game the locust character and Marcus could end up in the tentacles of a giant philosophical plant.

I smell a winner!

ZombiesRPplsToo @ May 22nd 2008 7:47PM

lol that sounds farmiliar

cough**HALO 2

IncredibleBulk92 @ May 22nd 2008 3:15PM

For those of you who are confused the quote is actually at about 38 seconds in not 2 minutes in lol

tut tut richard tut tut

DiscoGhost @ May 22nd 2008 3:32PM

I didn't really mind playing as the arbitor in Halo 2...I actually kind of liked how it worked into the story. But I also have a bit more respect for the covenant than the locusts. I see the locust as mindless drones, and that's how i like to think of them...brutish cannon (chainsaw) fodder.

Gamertag: GOPAL892005 @ May 22nd 2008 3:53PM

the Locust are actually an intelligent species given the info from Gears 1.

they have an organised ranking system with a leader General RAM & the Queen Locust.
its also mentioned that the Humans & Locust tried to negotiate; but that failed.

playing as the Locust would be quite sweet IMO, even though i kind of disliked playing the arbiter in HALO2 - playing as Locust in GoW2 would give us a better understanding of the Locust & whats their reason for starting the war.

monkeywithnoeyes @ May 22nd 2008 5:35PM

it best not do a Halo 2 and have you playing as the locust as well. You cant invest heavily emotionally if you're destracted from one story and set of characters to another. If they want that story to stand up against Bioshocks then they need to keep that focus.

DiscoGhost @ May 22nd 2008 4:04PM

meh...ants and bees have organized ranking systems too.

I know it's apples to oranges but I have this view of all these races equal to some Starcraft race where covenant == protoss and locust == zerg. I never cared why the zerg wanted to win, just assumed they were driven on the most primal of instincts to reproduce and survive...and that's how i feel about the locust.

Mister Kay @ May 22nd 2008 6:12PM

BOOMER! I WANT TO BE A BOOMER!

Edwin_jones @ May 23rd 2008 10:57AM

Please please god no, do not go the halo route!

I do not want to play the enemy. I want to hate and kill them. I do not want to hug them and 'understand' them after they have butchered countless millions of humans. Yes, in real life we should respect our enemies as humans but the whole point of games like this is to give us huge horrible monsters to fight so we don't have to feel sorry for them or feel bad about chainsawing them in half.

Don't ruin the plot halo style! Also, I prefer playing as one protagonist only. Playing as two or more characters fucks things up - MGS2 had that problem and it had it bad. Every GTA game made in 3D makes you play as one character only though every single mission, and they have some of the best narrative of any game made, ever.

Please only let us play as other characters in Co-Op, multi-player or spin off silly mini games you unlock after finishing the SP campaign Ala Resident Evil 4!