Spoilers Ahead, But it’s been six months so don’t complain.
I feel a big point of contention when a lot of people bring up the Campaign is the strange arbitrary “Who lives?” moment towards the end, suddenly going from a game (and by extension franchise) that has given you no control over the character’s actions or story, and suddenly forces you to make the gut-reaction of Del or JD.
Whether each character was the right decision, or which timeline will be used in Gears 6, that’s not my point to discuss, it’s been done to death since September. But I did want to talk about the fact that this type of choice shouldn’t be in Gears to begin with.
I think a similar moment (while obviously less impactful) was the deleted “Road to Ruin” scene, where instead of going in stealthily, as the Deleted Scene gives an option to, it was scrapped and instead the game forces you to go in guns blazing, as you’d naturally expect Dom to do right after losing Maria.
I couldn’t find anything stating why the content was cut, even the introduction featuring Cliff just says content gets scrapped in essentials, but my idea is that it was probably cut because the choice impacted Dom’s character from being the hot-headed Lation we’d come to love and choosing to try and sneak instead of shooting all the Locust would be out of character for him, especially at that point in the story.
Whereas every other point in Gears when presented with multiple paths, it only had to do with the placement of the characters, with no real impact on the surrounding story. Except for this moment that EPIC had planned, but was eventually scrapped—because it could’ve led to a drastic character action, driven by character emotion; that would not follow through with Dom throughout the game unless they had two-versions of Dom in the script from that point on.
I feel as if it was kept in the game, it could’ve had a similar effect to TC’s choice to include the character defining pick at the end of 5, which will obviously split the playerbase and the narrative, while only lasting in shock-value for the remaining 10 minutes of the Campaign.
I think the fact that the Road to Ruin Stealth section was thrown out originally, was a sign that—that sort of storytelling, where there’s more to account for and more involvement from the players, wasn’t for Gears. Also that there were no other choices in the upcoming Gears 3 and Judgement that featured character-driven actions, reflecting that EPIC had learned that lesson with 2 and never attempted it again, instead sticking with a one-way narrative that’s stronger and built with more character-involvement and no wishy-washy scenes with the different Gears we know and love acting out of place. Something 4 and 5 suffer from greatly, and is a problem for Kait, Del and JD at different times, such as JD’s drastic changes in Acts 1, 2, and 3 throughout 5’s campaign.
Now whether it should’ve been Del or JD, or how they’ll try to do this in Gears 6, either sticking with one almost like in Gears 2, or demoting JD and Del to be the same character with minimal impact on the story, I don’t think the choice should’ve been in the game in the first place. And TC throwing it in just takes away from any structured, strong narrative they could’ve been trying to create.
#AnotherBusterTinderQuarantineThread
