Cliff Bleszinski: If Gears 3 succeeds, maybe we'll do a prequel

Gears of War 3 is the end of a trilogy: you know that, no spoilers there, that's how we do things nowadays. But if lots of people buy the title (and they will, thanks to an impeccable pedigree/advertising budget larger than the GDP of many countries), that'll be a sign that more people want to play more Gears, right? Epic's Cliff Bleszinski says his company's made plenty of improvements to the Gears formula and would love to make another title if the market demands it. How to justify such an addition to the series' storyline, which Gears 3 promises to resolve conclusively? Um, dur, it's called a prequel.

“We’re businesspeople,” says CliffyB. “[If Gears 3] sells 8 or 10 million it would be completely dumb to not do another one, right? It's just business 101.” He calls this “The Peter Jackson route... The Hobbit or something like that.” Some would argue that “business 101” might be to deliver the promised product then move onto something new, so as not to dilute your brand – or that Bleszinski's choice of model is odd, as The Hobbit is running into all sorts of problems and having to be bumped up with technological bells and whistles to keep people interested. But those people obviously wouldn't be familiar with Gears of War, whose story has always been secondary to its ability to deliver as many gory deaths as humanly possible. Letting people do that in another game or two – possibly with a bigger chainsaw or something – is just business 101. Right?