If you’ll permit me to wax lyrical about our pull as a publication for a moment, I can’t get over the size of the OXM Facebook group - an entity that embarked on a terrifying growth spurt not long before Xbox One’s launch, and now stands proud and, in many cases, angry at over 2.7 million likes. Dropping in is like opening a window to find a full-on Halo 3-style battle royale raging outside the office, or that bit in Ghostbusters when Sigourney Weaver discovers another dimension inside her fridge.
2.7 million users obviously means 2.7 million points of view, but if there’s one thing everybody can seemingly get behind, it’s the need for a remastered original Gears of War trilogy on Xbox One. A throwaway reader comment to this effect has attracted no fewer than 220 likes, for example. I tend to resist calls for up-rezzed, padded-out versions of old games - after all, I’m the poor sap who has to go to preview events and stay awake while producers blather on about tweaked geometry and so forth - but having considered the idea at length (well, during the time it took me to go to the toilet), I think there’s a case to be made.
It’s not a question of nostalgia, mind you. Too little time has passed for nostalgia. The comely form of Marcus Fenix first graced our Xbox 360s in late 2006, a piffling eight years ago; by contrast, The Master Chief Collection’s earliest game dates back to 2001 and a console platform that is no longer in production. Seriously, I own tins of baked beans that are more venerable than Gears of War. It’s hard to be wistful about a series whose most recent instalment, Judg(e)ment, is barely a year and a half old, though that’s admittedly to paper over the fact that many would prefer Judg(e)ment had never existed.
Rather, the rationale for a Gears of War Collection on Xbox One is that it would help new developer Black Tusk Studios bed in. 343 Industries, you might recall, pushed out a remastered version of Halo: Combat Evolved with the aid of Certain Affinity and Saber Interactive, before moving fully onto Halo 4 - a production decision that gave it time to appreciate what makes a Halo game tick, while also putting together a swanky new engine. Microsoft is taking a similar approach with The Master Chief Collection, which seems among other things to be a proving ground for technology and ideas later to take flight in Halo 5.
The advantage of this tactic is that there’s less risk of breaking an established franchise by putting a new outfit to work on it - the remasters are fundamentally the same, just fleshed out and treated to a new coat of paint. Black Tusk could probably use a probationary period - though composed of industry veterans, the studio has yet to ship a game, and its one other project appears to be in limbo following Microsoft’s acquisition of the Gears license from Epic.
The latter’s Unreal Engine 4 will power the new Gears of War, incidentally, as it has the previous four. The middleware’s maturity and ubiquity should make life easier for Black Tusk during these tricky early months, especially now that sister studio Lionhead has adopted UE4 for Fable: Legends. Come to think of it, that Legends demo map could easily be a staging ground for Gears of War, couldn’t it? The environmental furnishings are every bit as opulent, as grotty with backstory as those you’d encounter while touring the nicer stretches of woebegone planet Sera.
To discuss the need for a remastered Gears of War trilogy is, of course, to invite a larger debate about the franchise’s staying power. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer recently remarked that Microsoft is looking at a ten year investment, but can Fenix and co (assuming they’re still on the cast list) really go the distance? Could Gears sustain an Xbox Live dashboard slot comparable to the Halo Channel, which will launch alongside the Master Chief Collection this winter? I’m sceptical, to be honest, but there’s clearly demand for at least one more numbered release - and a buffed-up Marcus Fenix Collection would be a fine way of prepping the ground.
I da 1 i 2 dobiju 4 co-op… E to bi bilo uzivanje