Epic Trying to Inject More Life Into Gears 3 Maps

[Logan Westbrook]

Epic Trying to Inject More Life Into Gears 3 Maps

Every multiplayer map in Gears of War 3 now comes with moving parts.

Videogame architecture, with some notable exceptions, is some of the sturdiest craftsmanship around, and never really changes, no matter what you do to it. Gears of War 3 [http://www.amazon.com/Gears-War-3-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0H79C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315484435&sr=8-1] is going to buck this trend however, as Epic is trying to mix things up and make the game's multiplayer maps feel more alive.

Jim Brown, the lead level designer on Gears of War 3, said Epic had tried very hard with to make the maps feel more dynamic. "There's a lot of motion," he said, "things you can interact with, cover you can destroy, push over, and other things just to make it feel a lot more alive." He said that certain levels could be changed pretty dramatically depending on what the player did. He also said that said that every multiplayer map in Gears 3 would have something moving, or indeed, living, which is probably less ominous than it sounds.

Brown also talked about the philosophy behind the Gears 3 multiplayer maps. He said that symmetry was an important component when it came to the design of the maps, but also that Epic had tried to make the maps look asymmetrical visually. The reasoning for this, he said, was to help players navigate, and also make it easier to devise strategies.

Gears of War 3 comes out for Xbox 360 on September 20th.

Source: IGN [http://au.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gears-of-war-3/video/6332882/gears-of-war-3-interview-jim-brown]



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[Dogstile]

One of the most fun multiplayer's i've ever played was Red Faction: Guerrilla which had some of the most alive maps i've seen.

If epic wants us to be able to mess with the maps more, i'm all for it.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Sounds good, I'll have to give the multiplayer on Gears 3 a proper try. I usually stay away from the Gears of War multiplayer, cause I suck at it. That said I've only played the mutiplayer on Gears 2 like 4 times so it's not like I've made an effort to get better at it.

 

[Cpt Corallis]

So there's going to be more stuff like the Dust storm on the Trenches map?
WIN!
That was easily my favourite map in the Beta for that very reason.

 

[ssgt splatter]

Cool.
Something "alive" huh? I'll bet one of the maps has a Lambent stalk or two coming out of the ground and latching onto something.

 

[Fasckira]

I like the idea of maps having moving things and so on but whats with the urge to be symmetrical? Two of the best multiplayer maps Ive played (de_dust and pl_badwater) weren't symmetrical and were a blast to play while still being easy to navigate.

If anything I'd argue that an unsymmetrical map is easier to navigate as each area is different...

 

[MercurySteam]

I thought all the maps in the MP Beta worked pretty well in all the different modes. Can't wait to test them out in Horde 2.0 and Beast Mode.

 

[yuval152]

They need to cut off the brown(played the beta).

 

[PaganFury]

Symmetrical maps are fairly lame. It occasionaly makes sense but for the most part i tend to get tired of them quicker. Some of the best maps ever are very asymnetrical but only valve seems to understand that.

 

[Saulkar]

Nice, I might give GEARs another try on XBOX live.

 

[Broken Orange]

Cool.
Something "alive" huh? I'll bet one of the maps has a Lambent stalk or two coming out of the ground and latching onto something.

one of the maps in the beta, Old Town, had chickens running around the map. You can shoot them, stomp them, and even grenade tag them, turning thim into suicide bombers. Not to say that none of the other nine won't have some sort of hostile AI.

 

[UnderCoverGuest]

Hmm, might give it a little life IF YOU RELEASE IT AND GEARS OF WAR 2 ON PC YOU GOOFBALLS.


Sure you'd probably have PC gamers simply complaining about the game, but our games collection is so saturated with the bland taste of shoddy console ports already that it'd probably taste no different...I think I'm hungry, I should eat some lunch.

 

[Joshimodo]

Sounds good, I'll have to give the multiplayer on Gears 3 a proper try. I usually stay away from the Gears of War multiplayer, cause I suck at it. That said I've only played the mutiplayer on Gears 2 like 4 times so it's not like I've made an effort to get better at it.

Gears 2=/=Proper Gears multiplayer. It was a shambles.



Anyway, off the top of my head, there's:

Checkout - Openable Easter Egg door, fire alarms, falling shelves.
Thrashball - Scoreboard falls down.
Trenches - Sand/dust storm.
Old Town - Chickens.
Overpass - Sinks into the ground.
Dry Dock - ???, likely player-moved parts, á la Trashball.
Sandbar - ???.
Hotel - Breakable glass, ornaments, lamps etc. I recall a button somewhere as well.
Mercy - ???, None as far as I recall.
Gridlock - Dead people, as ash "statues". Breakable on impact.

 

[BrotherRool]

Say like a level where you start on moving trucks chasing a plane and you have to fight the people inside the plain whilst on the moving trucks that you have to leap between and can be destroyed?

Or say this level where you were in this Chateau but the building was burning and as the fire swept through the building walls came down, creating new opens?

And maybe you could interact with stuff by climbing all over it and not actually being defeated by a head-high wall and having zip lines and stuff.

And then you could make it not brown/grey.

And then you could switch it all off, sell off your console, by a better one and play Uncharted 3

/troll

 

[ssgt splatter]

Cool.
Something "alive" huh? I'll bet one of the maps has a Lambent stalk or two coming out of the ground and latching onto something.

one of the maps in the beta, Old Town, had chickens running around the map. You can shoot them, stomp them, and even grenade tag them, turning thim into suicide bombers. Not to say that none of the other nine won't have some sort of hostile AI.

I've played the beta too and I remember the chickens but I didn't really think of them as being alive; more of a nusiance. I didn't know that you could grenade tag them though. I'll have to try that when the game comes out just for giggles.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Source: IGN [http://au.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gears-of-war-3/video/6332882/gears-of-war-3-interview-jim-brown]

In point of fact, this link leads to Gamespot AU, not IGN.