'We basically inspire each other:' People Can Fly and Epic on teaming up for Gears of War: Judgment
It takes millions of dollars and a lot of manpower to create a AAA product like Gears of War. For Gears of War: Judgment, Epic Games will share development duties with People Can Fly, Epic Games' subsidiary studio based in Poland. During an interview with Epic Games design director Cliff Blezsinski and People Can Fly founder Adrian Chmielarz, the duo explained the choice to share development of Gears of War: Judgment.
"If you look at the slightly compressed timeframe for these products - we don't have the two and a half years like Gears 2 had - the fact that with the feature set needed, we're in a world where if you look at the Call of Duty interviews where they're like here's the CEO of Sledgehammer, here's the CEO of Infinity Ward, here's the CEO of Duncan Hines, you're like, 'Jesus, what's going on here?' It takes multiple studios now to really make a game that can have all of this between the campaign and multiplayer and the co-op elements and things like that, and plus they're quite *crag*ing crazy, to be honest with you," Blezsinski said. Chmielarz added that the addition of People Can Fly brings something "fresh" to the Gears franchise.
"The big idea is, yes, we can bring something fresh to this. I think we basically inspire each other - we have these new ideas and then sort of shake the foundation of Gears up without changing too much; it's still Gears." But it's also a question of manpower needed to tackle the technical hurdles of building upon the precedents set in Gears of War 3, Blezsinski explained. "Making the campaign have that many Locust and be that intense made it a requirement for the younger guys working on the Epic side to refine the controls, and there's just non-stop back and forth [between Epic and People Can Fly]."
"If you look at the slightly compressed timeframe for these products - we don't have the two and a half years like Gears 2 had - the fact that with the feature set needed, we're in a world where if you look at the Call of Duty interviews where they're like here's the CEO of Sledgehammer, here's the CEO of Infinity Ward, here's the CEO of Duncan Hines, you're like, 'Jesus, what's going on here?' It takes multiple studios now to really make a game that can have all of this between the campaign and multiplayer and the co-op elements and things like that, and plus they're quite *crag*ing crazy, to be honest with you," Blezsinski said. Chmielarz added that the addition of People Can Fly brings something "fresh" to the Gears franchise.
"The big idea is, yes, we can bring something fresh to this. I think we basically inspire each other - we have these new ideas and then sort of shake the foundation of Gears up without changing too much; it's still Gears." But it's also a question of manpower needed to tackle the technical hurdles of building upon the precedents set in Gears of War 3, Blezsinski explained. "Making the campaign have that many Locust and be that intense made it a requirement for the younger guys working on the Epic side to refine the controls, and there's just non-stop back and forth [between Epic and People Can Fly]."
