14 DAY TRIAL // Gears of War is one of a few action-driven shooters that score high with female gamers and one of the leading developers working on the franchise believes that the success is linked to the lack of stereotypes in all of the franchise's titles.
Chris Perna, the art director working at Epic Games, tells The Official Xbox Magazine that, “If you want to create this attractive, stereotypical, sexy female – a lot of games do that and it’s kind of cliché at this point. You see the implants and the blonde hair and pants and you roll your eyes – it’s almost like the game geek’s idealization of what a woman should be.”
Despite the fact that the Gears of War series is based on soldiers that defy the limits of human strength and sometime even the laws of physics, the lack of stereotypes makes the entire female presence more believable.
Perna adds, “They’re still feminine. Anya in Gears 3 comes across as being very feminine, and I think it works. From what we’ve heard, when they play the game they feel empowered and they feel good.”
Gears of War might appeal to a wide female audience but the team is not yet thinking about creating an installment that focuses on a squad of women soldiers.
The art director believes that the idea is an interesting one but will only be considered in the far future.
At the moment, Epic Games is putting the finishing touches on Gears of War: Judgment, a prequel that will be launched exclusively on the Xbox 360 during March.
The developer is close to Microsoft and that probably means the team is also working on another game in the Gears of War series linked to next-generation hardware, which might be revealed and launched towards the end of the year.