Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda Interview

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Eurogamer: What about suggestions Cole Train was a racial stereotype? How do you respond?

Kudo Tsunoda: People take away from games and different characters what they want. Clearly, as you're developing the characters, you're not like, 'Hey, we'd like this character to be stereotypical.' From a game-making perspective you want to get as much uniqueness and variety with the characters as possible, for them to have individual flair and for people to identify with them. You don't want to build stereotypical characters, not just racial stereotypes but stereotypes of any kind.

Eurogamer: I know Gears 2 isn't out till November, but do you have any plans regarding Xbox Live yet? Will there be a playable demo and downloadable content?

Kudo Tsunoda: We don't have any announced plans on the demo side yet. We don't have any announced plans on the demo side yet. For sure, Gears is the kind of game that anybody who plays it gets addicted to. My girlfriend isn't necessarily into big action shooters per say, but when I started playing Gears 1 we got into the co-op, and now she's a huge Gears fan... But we don't have any announced plans on the demo as yet.

As for downloadable content, Gears definitely lends itself to that, but we don't have any plans announced yet. Any kind of big blockbuster franchise is going to have additional downloadable content. I think it would be crazy to say there's not going to be any for Gears 2. That's something that's more or less expected out of big franchises. I certainly wouldn't think it's crazy talk to think there might be some downloadable content in the future.

Eurogamer: Cliffy B's tagline for Gears of War 2, as he tirelessly reminds us, is 'Bigger, Better, More Badass'. I understand the first two, but can you explain just how one makes a game 'more badass'?

Throw one of those sock grenade things. That'll show 'em.

Kudo Tsunoda: For one, there are a lot of different abilities we're giving the main character in terms of things you can do in combat. Also you're put in a lot of different gameplay experiences, a bigger variety of scenarios, so you feel like you're not just mastering one thing that carries on throughout the entire game. To be successful you've got to master a wide variety of combat situations.

It's not like you get one thing down and you do that for the entire game. It's really giving you that badass feeling of being able to conquer a variety of situations, using your own tactical strategies. There's bigger and better on the weapons side. Yes, we expand the characters' abilities, and yes, you're going to have a hundred Locusts all swarming plus these giant boss characters that are going to be bigger and better.

Eurogamer: And more badass, presumably.

Kudo Tsunoda: Giving you the more badass feeling is about being able to master a wide variety of different kinds of combat situations.

Eurogamer: So on the badass scale, if 10 is maximum badass and one is not very badass at all actually, where would you put Gears of War and its sequel?

Kudo Tsunoda: I'd give Gears of War 1 an eight. Gears of War 2... 11. We're taking it to 11.

Eurogamer: Badass.