Action. Horror. Comedy. Love. Tragedy. The Gears of War 2 story had almost everything. The only element missing? Closure.

The sequel ends with far more questions than answers and, by the time the final credits roll, you are left with far more confusion than comprehension. What the hell has happened to the world of Sera, and what will happen next? Until we get some real conclusion from the inevitable Gears 3, 4, 5 or 100, all we can do is guess...

Which is exactly what we plan on doing. Here are the six mysteries that puzzled and intrigued us the most, along with our best shots at solving them. If you’ve got theories of your own, share them in the comments below –
we definitely want to hear them.

QUESTION #1:
What happened to all the new characters?

One second they were here... the next, they were gone. Dizzy. Tai. Carmine. Maria. Even Skorge. We’d barely been introduced to these fresh denizens of the Gears universe before each and every one was met with an untimely and unexpected fate.

What, however, were those fates? Who’s dead and who do we only think is dead? What happened in those final moments, so carefully kept off screen?

Our best guess: Carmine’s kaput, obviously, as his grisly demise was fully displayed. Tai, tamed by days of intense torture, chose to end his own life. Maria, equally broken and beaten, was euthanized by Dom. He recognized that while her body still lived - barely - the woman he loved was long gone.

Dizzy and Skorge, on the other hand, most likely survived. Yes, Dizzy was last seen in the same battle that effectively ended Tai’s life, and yes, Skorge was last seen smashing to the ground after plummeting hundreds of feet. Both, though, were too heavily promoted through screens and art before the game’s release to receive such sudden and rather lackluster send offs.

We believe that Tai sacrificed his own safety to protect Dizzy, who will appear in another Gears for another vehicle-based level. We also believe that Skorge is too powerful a Locust to die from a simple fall; he will continue to hunt Delta Squad for at least one more sequel.

QUESTION #2:
Who, or what, are the Sires?

When you first enter the New Hope Research Facility, you expect answers and lots of them. The creepy, abandoned, rain-soaked atmosphere screams, “Big twist coming up!” And when you begin conversing with egomaniacal AIs while strolling past dusty containment tubes, you expect those twists and answers to be something on the level of BioShock.

Unfortunately, those expectations are not met. Niles Samson and the other doctors’ scattered journals consistently stop short of describing the actual purpose of the facility and the real origin of its test subjects. You leave with a new mission, but without any new insight.

Our best guess: When Niles and his test subjects are forced to flee the research labs, they head to a secret sanctuary in the mountains. When Marcus and Dom locate that same sanctuary years (possibly centuries or millennia) later, they also happen to discover the very center of Locust civilization. Coincidence?

Yeah right. In our opinion, the end of New Hope is the beginning of the Locust race. In experimenting with human hybrids, probably on behalf of the government, Niles created the first, half-formed Locust. The Sires are the evolutionary bridge – the “missing link” – between the two species. Once underground, they flourished into a new race and mankind’s future enemy. Oops!