Gears of War 2 was officially announced at the Game Developers Conference last week, but apart from a few technology trailers and a teaser of half darkened silhouettes fighting a chainsaw bayonet battle (seems the old favorite weapon makes a return), not much is known about the new game. Mark Rein, head honcho at Epic, is keen on keeping details from surfacing.

Recently, John DiMaggio, who voices Marcus Fenix in Gears of War, talked to IGN Australia and released a couple of more juicy details about the game. First of all, he said that for the moment he was recording voice lines for Marcus and that he'd known about the new title for a while, but he couldn't talk about it until the official announcement had been made. Not only was he reprising the role of Fenix, but another character he voiced in the original, Franklin, leader of the Stranded, was making an appearance in Gears of War 2. This strongly suggests the possibility that some areas of the original would be revisited.

Then, John talked about the actual game, providing some interesting insight. On the one hand, "there's new weapons, new beasts, there's a couple of new characters, and it's just badass", which was to be expected given the fact that we are dealing with a sequel and given that the Gears of War universe would not tolerate anything below "badass". On the other hand, interaction between characters, mainly provided through dialog and cutscenes, is now much more deeper. The narrative of the game itself is much improved, with a more clear place in the game and no more secondary-to-the-fast-paced action oriented gameplay.

One last thing that DiMaggio, who also voices Futurama character Bender, let slip is that this time around there will be no running from favorite beast Brumak. This time around, Marcus Fenix is standing his ground.

The game is slated for a November release and is an Xbox exclusive. More details are bound to surface, so stay tuned.