Gears of War copycats 'hurt the original,' says Epic art director

Copycats that borrowed from the look and feel of Gears of War have only damaged and added to negative stereotypes of the franchise, Epic Games art director Chris Perna told OXM during a recent interview.

"I think a lot of the stereotyping was done by copycats," Perna told OXM. "When Gears came out it was fresh, it was dark. That's what it's meant to be, right? No apologies there. It was a brutal game — it was meant to be. Then everybody copied us and copied our look, and the market was flooded with Gears clones, which hurts the original."

According to Perna, Gears of War: Judgment will evolve the series "even further" and that visually, it might be the best looking entry in the franchise yet.

"We've enhanced the bloom in the renderer so fires will bloom better and won't be a blown out, ghostly type of thing where it looks like Vaseline is smeared on the lens," Perna said. "I think it's really, really soft looking. We've evolved the color palette even more, to make a lot more color yet still keep a more somber tone. We've done things with post-processing to really enhance the visuals and our cinematics, too."

Gears of War: Judgment will launch for Xbox 360 on March 19.