Hello, My Name Is Cliff

OXM: All said and done, how happy are you with Gears of War 2?

CLIFF BLESZINSKI: I remain extraordinarily proud of the work that I do as well as the gifted team I work with. But that said, nothing’s perfect and hindsight is 20/20. Matchmaking was very fl awed out of the box; the game did ship with exploits, and it’s an unfortunate reality when you make a product that is played by millions of players on day one. That said, Horde was a resounding success, and this really seems to be the era of co-op really and truly emerging as its own thing, much like versus did years ago in the Quake and Doom era. But we’ll continue with DLC and keep that long tail as long as possible.

I think we did a far better job with the story this time around — I think Josh Ortega is a fantastic writer, the game had a tighter story, made a lot more sense, had some nice twists and turns, a little bit darker. That said, of course, it’s not Shakespeare; it’s still a popcorn blockbuster. People love to beat up on us about story for some reason, and they focus on the buff characters and the chainsaws, and they fail to see any of the nuance in the game. But the reactions to the Maria resolution were interesting — if you go to YouTube right now and look up that spoiler scene, there are 780 comments on there and two-thirds are people saying things like “this made me cry,” “this is the saddest moment I’ve ever seen in a videogame,” “oh my god that was horrible.” Sometimes you’ve gotta trust your gut and make the kind of game you want to play and believe in yourself.

OXM: They say that artists should follow their instincts and create to make themselves happy. But you’re a commercial artist: when you’re working on something, it’s being created for the audience to buy it, so you have to consider their needs, too. Which dominates?

CB: It’s a multifaceted formula. We have 125 people at Epic. Those guys have kids; we have to keep the medical plans going and keep gas in their new cars! We do take good care of our employees. But that said, I don’t want to be the indie-game guy. Games like Shadow of the Colossus are amazing, but it’s not in my blood. I’m all about the fun and the explosions and the entertaining moments. If people want to say that the content I work on is very Michael Bay–ish, I’m perfectly okay with that. I’m not going to make the videogame equivalent of Adaptation or The Reader.

OXM: But you’re still creating for yourself?

CB: There’s a balance. There are certain game ideas that I would like to do that are extremely personal to me in regards to my past and my upbringing and what I fi nd interesting and exciting and scary. But at the same time, Epic…we make blockbusters. So you have to fi nd where that threshold is.

OXM: You hint at these ideas that you have not explored. What are the game ideas that have gotten away while you’ve been focusing on Gears?

CB: Well, this is getting a bit much, but there was a rumor about me doing a survival-horror game. I have absolutely no idea how that hit.

OXM: Somebody wanted you to make a survival-horror game.

CB: I know! And that genre is very near and dear to me. I love the first three Silent Hill games. The other ones didn’t happen; it’s like Highlander sequels. I’m sorry, I know that’s dickish. I’m a huge fan of Condemned: I think it’s one of the most underrated and poorly marketed franchises. I thoroughly enjoy Resident Evil 5; yes, people have their crits, but they should f*** off because it’s a stellar game. Fatal Frame — Jesus, I had to stop playing Fatal Frame 2 because it scared me too much. Maybe I’m just a big p*ssy. But that genre is near and dear to me and somewhere down the line I would love to get around to doing something like that. But it’s a tough sell when you start making something psychological, single-player– oriented, and very nuance-based.

And that [would] be a challenge, because in case you haven’t noticed, at Epic, we’re not always that good at nuance. We tend to paint with large brushstrokes. So no, I’m not making a horror game next. Gears is very much near and dear to me.

PREV12345NEXT