Gears of War - Epic's Xbox 2 project unmasked?

By Tom Bramwell Published 21 January, 2005

Epic's first Xbox 360 project is a third-person game called Gears of War according to a well-placed source. Could be at E3.

Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 title for Xbox 2, hinted at in a Eurogamer interview last July, will be called "Gears of War" and will launch exclusively on the Microsoft platform.

A usually reliable industry source informed Eurogamer that Gears of War is a third-person action game where you will be able to ride around on beastly creatures and kill things, which admittedly isn't too specific but is still more than we knew.

The same source also speculated that Gears of War would be shown at E3 this May following the Unreal Engine 3's tour of the world last year, which included in a behind closed doors presentation at the last Game Developer's Conference.

Microsoft is expected to officially unveil the Xbox 2 platform between now and E3 and reportedly ship it within the year, and the suggestion is the Gears of War could be one of the console's big early titles.

Speaking to Eurogamer last July, Tim Sweeney said "Epic's next major Unreal Engine 3-based game is going to ship on a next generation console." Colleague Mark Rein then joked, "Wait! Is it Microsoft?" before Sweeney added, "No points for guessing which platform we're going to ship on!" with a laugh. The conversation then moved on to Microsoft's XNA cross-platform technology.

A quick check of the US trademark database reveals that Epic does indeed own the "Gears of War" name, although due to time differences it was impossible to confirm whether or not it's connected to the developer's next-generation console project at the time of going to press. The company also registered "Hollow Point" as a trademark around a month beforehand.

We hope to hear back from Epic over the weekend and will be sure to bring you anything further we hear about Gears of War just as soon as we have it. To read more about the capabilities of the awesome Unreal Engine 3, check out our two-part interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein - here and here.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Pirotic #1 7 years ago

    Gives you some idea of the grunt next generation consoles will have if they are making an xbox game using the new engine before a PC game.

  • Feanor #2 7 years ago

    Xbox 2 fanboy!

    ;)

  • space_ace #3 7 years ago

    hm.
    okay.

  • Enzo #4 7 years ago

    If the xbox is using the unreal engine 3 and the xna platform allows the developer get the full power of it...

    I cant see ps3 or nintendo rev winning this console war.

  • DutchDemons #5 7 years ago

    did anyone say PS3 or nintendo revolution could NOT handle the engine?

    no.

    well,except you implying it,but your wrong,seeing you got no proof.

    all 3 next gen consoles will,no doubt, be able to handle the engine.

  • Feanor #6 7 years ago

    Your and you're are not the same word. The latter is an abbreviation of you are.

    I don't want to pick at spelling, but it really hurts the eyes when someone writes "your" when they really mean "you're".
    Edited by 1 at 21/01/05 @ 19:46

  • Tweakmonkey #7 7 years ago

    So Microsoft are throwing bags of cash for an 'exclusive' deal to bring a PC game to the Xbox 2... not really a shock is it? Splinter Cell was done like this too if I remember correctly.

  • MonkeyMatters #8 7 years ago

    "So Microsoft are throwing bags of cash for an 'exclusive' deal to bring a PC game to the Xbox 2... not really a shock is it? Splinter Cell was done like this too if I remember correctly."

    As was Halo, when they bought out Bungie....which pretty much single handedly spearheaded the MS's march into the console gaming industry.

    Can't wait to see what Epic pull off, I'm a long-time fan....though they've not done anything without Digital Extremes that was succesful so we'll have to see how they pull this off.

  • DutchDemons #9 7 years ago

    feanor,really i cant be bothered with spelling,im typing like a maniac,so i can't always get everything right,other than that,suck my [try and spell that dork].

    ever heard of the word on-fucking-topic?thaz when ya supposed to actually react on the topic,not nitpick on ppl forgetting an e when they type.
    punk kid

  • Destria #10 7 years ago

    I've got to agree with Franor here. Though I normally don't hold people to task over it, it really aggravates me too (same with "they're", "there" and "their", and misuse of "it's";). I guess Feanor just snapped :)

  • MonkeyMatters #11 7 years ago

    It's Unreal Engine 3 (UE3). there is no unreal 3.

    you can find out more about the engine aswell as more screenshots of it (which infact is Gears of War; if you've seen the demonstration of the engine you'd have heard Tim Sweeney say that these models are actually from an upcoming game(for an unamed platform) which is not in the Unreal series....)

    http://www.unrealtechnology.com/flash/technology/ue30 .shtml

  • Niklas #12 7 years ago

    I think this link http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=lk2pb b.4.29 sort of confirms that Gears of War actually is Epic's new title.

  • onyxbox #13 7 years ago

    this is a pointless thread :-/

  • Bill Gates is Evil #14 7 years ago

    did anyone say PS3 or nintendo revolution could NOT handle the engine?

    no.

    well,except you implying it,but your wrong,seeing you got no proof.

    all 3 next gen consoles will,no doubt, be able to handle the engine.

    Considering Nintendo is anti-graphics, anti-online, anti-consumer, and anti-progress, I highly doubt you'll be seeing this game on the "revolution" (which gets its name because it will undoubtedly have some gimmick like the second screen on the DS). Nintendo has said repeatedly and with clarity that the current generation (PS2, Xbox, GC) is the peak of technology and that gamers do not want better graphics.

    Which is their way of setting you up to be hugely disappointed in their "next-generation" console.

    Much of the press and the gamer community is already considering the next generation to basically be PS3 vs. Xbox2... for the rest of you, it will take time and more information before people start considering the "Revolution" a non-contender. The remaining 12 people who stand by Nintendo despite their lunacy will realize that the Revolution is on a completely different level than PS3 and XB2-- Nintendo will readily admit to such, and Sony and Microsoft execs will laugh it off.

    Based off of the information and comments Nintendo has released on the Revolution, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Revolution used GameCube technology.

  • L0cky #15 7 years ago

    'Wow. I can't believe we PC gamers wont get this game. Epic has let me down, and I have been the biggest Epic supporter...but meh.'

    Hmm, who said that? Epic have more than enough clout to tell M$ to get to Falkirk if they asked them not to make a pc version; and Epic have their roots on the pc. Besides, an 'exclusive' deal for X-Box almost always excludes the other consoles, not pc.


    Bill Gates is Evil:

    I think your twisting things round a little. Nintendo haven't said that the current generation is a peak in rendering technology. They even said that Revolution will meet player's expectations of a next generation console in regards to rendering abilities. What they _also_ said is that rendering power is no longer what's most important; that rendering tech has reached a high enough level where you can't differentiate the competition based on it.

    This lead them to say that they'd break away from the other console's based on something innovative. Bottom line: they say you can now take rendering for granted.

    Personally, I think if anyone doubts any of the 3 consoles' abilities to run UE3 then they're being extremely short sighted.

  • andrewfromdoncaster #16 7 years ago

    "The next generation of consoles are all going to support vertex and pixel shaders. It's gonna be easier to scale the graphics between the platforms, the sad thing is they are probably going to be even more similar than this generation has been. "




    Which is where the new style of gameplay comes in perhaps.....

  • MonkeyMatters #17 7 years ago

    "Considering Nintendo is anti-graphics, anti-online, anti-consumer, and anti-progress,"

    heh, know your history there bud before you open your uninformed mouth.