CliffyB: Devs making "linear and easier" games to "grow audience"

Developers are making games easier in an attempt to grow the current console generation's audience, Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski believes.

"It feels like in this current console generation that we've taken a lot of steps to grow the audience and what I think's happened is that the games have become more linear and easier," Bleszinski told X360A.

"It feels like a lot of quick-time-events."

Bleszinski highlighted the growing popularity of games such as Dark Souls as evidence that gamers had grown tired of more mainstream offerings.

"The more I play games like that the more I turned off to them and just want to get back to systems interacting with systems, and get back to a game that, you know, when was the last time a game really challenged you and asked something of you, right?

"There's a reason why Demon Souls and Dark Souls have taken off lately. It's because they really require you actually try."

The same ethic will be seen in Gears of War: Judgement, Bleszinski's upcoming prequel to the Gears series, co-developed by Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly.

"Casual mode will still be casual, whatever, if you just want to see graphics and you don't want to die," he explained. "But every other mode will be hard in this game and you will die."

"If my buddies aren't reviving me, and we aren't working as a team, you're going to die, and it's okay to die a few times in a game to try some different strategies."

Gamers should not be presented with an identical experience every time they play a level, Bleszinski concluded.

"'I came around the same exact corner and saw the same exact plane crash, the same exact enemies,' there's nothing unique."