Gears Tactics Returns as XSX Launch Title - Interview with Coalition Studio

Table of Contents

• Gears Tactics Returns as XSX Launch Title - Interview with Coalition Studio
• Jack is back
• Xbox Series X updates and the future of Gears of War

Jack is back

How did you decide on bringing Jack to Gears Tactics instead of another character, and what went into figuring out what kind of skills he would have?

Tyler Bielman: Yeah, so we sat down and we thought we want this release to be really exciting for us people who have already played the game as well as people who have never played. And to come back to a game and re-engage with it that you've already played, it has to be a pretty cool set of content. So we knew that we couldn't just add a couple of equipment weapon mods and a couple of pieces of armor. That just wasn't enough. So we needed to do something big, and we needed to do something that really fundamentally changes the kind of the game plan and every mission. And Jack was a great solution to that. We were able to bring in an entirely new type of unit with an entirely new skill tree, a unit that goes on every mission with you, which changes every mission you might've played before.

And that was kind of the bar for us, was we really wanted that novelty to be there so that if you have played to a certain amount on the PC and you want to jump to a Series X, you're going to have a really interesting experience with the new content. Jack in particular is a really fun sort of beloved character as a companion in the Gears universe. And we thought that allowing the player to bring in a unit that has a lot of combos that you can combine with the existing classes, allowing a unit to come in and put down area of effect zones that change the battlefield much more expanded than the original set of units, it felt right to us. And then once we actually got the... I remember the day we got the actual 3D model of Jack in the game and sort of with your units, and it just felt great, and it felt right.

The animations where Jack is leaving with the squad to get into the vehicle and head to the battlefield, that all just feels great. We were fortunate enough to get enough audio time with our core cast that they will talk to Jack, and Jack will beat back at them. So it's a really delightful addition that if you didn't know differently, we hope would feel like Jack was there from the very beginning. And we're really proud of all the new skills. We knew that we wanted area of effects to be more important in the game than they had been when we shipped. We thought for a tactical game, it was really... There's a lot of interesting space for the player to problem solve if they can put down the zones with poisons or zones that buff the player units.

And so when we went into the skill tree, we actually built that system. Cam's team built that system, and it was so robust and well-designed on a technical level that we were able to do a lot of skills in that variety. So that creates sort of one of Jack's quadrants of the skill tree. We knew that we wanted to have buffs for player units. We knew we wanted Jack to be able to debuff or power down the enemies. And then one of Jack's signatures is the hijack skill, allowing you to take control of an enemy and bring them onto your squad for a limited period of time. We knew that was going to be a centerpiece for Jack. So in terms of how we approach the skill tree, those were some of the key elements that kind of led us to the skills that you see in his screen right now.

New enemies and equipment

What kind of Supreme equipment will players get to unlock as they play through the game?

Tyler Bielman: I kind of envisioned this update being sort of a triangle. On one point of the triangle you have player tools, something the player can use that's really exciting, and that's Jack. Then you have, on the other point of the triangle, is the enemies. We knew we needed to create new obstacles to freshen up the encounters and to sort of counter that sort of power level that we're giving you with Jack. So we created the five Deviant enemies, and these are variations on enemies, core enemies from the game. We added skills to those enemies that you have not seen on the other side of the battlefield before. For example, the Deviant wretch kind of has... Wretches are sort of pack hunters, and so the Deviant wretch sort of has an alpha pack ability that buffs all the other wretches.

And so when they're bearing down on you, they become a much more pivotal threat to take care of. So, that was the enemy side of the triangle. We wanted to make sure that we had player tool in Jack, and a really compelling set of enemies on the other side. And then we wanted to give you rewards to finish off the triangle that kind of closed the loop. So if you stay with the game and you're kind of proceeding through into act two and act three, we've refactored the kind of the way the equipment drops, so you will get supreme equipment. And the supreme equipment are strictly weapon mods. There's one supreme weapon mod for each sort of slot in each weapon. And if you were to, for example, get all of the supreme mods for the Longshot, they all work together to create sort of a critical hit machine out of the sniper rifle called the Longshot.

And so they all sort of work together to elevate that weapon to sort of its ultimate version in terms of just turning it into a headshot machine. And that's the role of the supreme equipment, is kind of unlock the ultimate power of the weapon for each class.