14 DAY TRIAL // Gears of War 3 is already a success, having managed to sell more than 3 million units since launch, and a lot of the success is down to the way the various elements of the game, including the boss fights, were designed with the player's experience in mind.
Speaking to Edge about boss battles Cliff Blezisnki, who is the lead developer on Gears of War 3, has said, “I can’t take much credit for that battle outside of playing and giving feedback. That boss fight was snuck in by one of our developers – Rob McLaughlin – who’s a bull-headed great programmer of ours. But I go back to the rule of threes with bosses, on average it’s like you want three phases.”
He added, “You’re fighting Bowser and the first phase is the exploratory phase and phase 2 it gets a little harder and it’s a challenge and you have the prestige. But you have to that moment where now he’s really mad, and one of the things I’ve seen from the reviews thus far is that we finally have boss fights that people feel are worthy of a game like this whereas a lot of them where kind of tacked in or disappointing in previous ones.”
Bleszinki says that the boss battles and the increase in difficulty towards the end of Gears of War 3 was a deliberate choice made by the Epic Games team, designed to show players that they were approaching the end of the franchise and that everything they had done up to now was worth it.
He had particular praise for the Lambent Berserker battle, saying that the team deliberately lengthened the encounter and changed the way the enemy attacks to create a “sweaty palms” situation for the player.
Epic Games has already revealed that it will be releasing DLC for Gears of War 3.