EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: markrein

Despite remarks made by Gears of War 2 writer, Josh Ortega, saying how the Gears of War franchise has a 10-year plan, vice-president of Epic, Mark Rein, has shot down those comments when asked whether Epic has plans to release instalments of Gears of War until 2016:

“No, we do not. In this industry you can’t plan games very far in advance. We appreciate the enthusiasm Josh has for our franchise but we don’t have a ten-year plan.

“We always have ideas of where we’d like it to go but it’s determined on a game-by-game basis and ultimately by fan support. Our focus right now is supporting the Gears of War 2 game and community.”

Further hammering home the idea that it is seemingly preposterous to plan for the development of a game years into the future, Rein continued:

“We’re working on the next title update for Gears of War 2 right now. When this title update is done we’ll start planning the next title update for Gears of War 2.”

And that’s that!

Source: VG247

On the Gears of War 2 official forum, Epic’s Vice President, Mark Rein has put up a lengthy post revealing some changes and additions Epic will be introducing to Gears 2 in the near future.

The title update will see bugs and exploits being addressed, as well as additional achievements being added related to downloadable content. As for the exploits, Rein mentions where they’re placing their attention:

“For example we’ve fixed the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through some walls, gain infinite Lancer ammo and equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously plus many more.”

Rein then goes on to mention improvements to the online gameplay experience, including “increased penalties for quitting matches early, adding additional spawn protection against planted grenades and chainsaw attacks, and adding the ability to see the Submission flag carrier destination by using Tac/Com.”

Rein also talks about fixes for issues related to the use of the shotgun and online latency, saying; “We fixed the client side hit detection on the shotgun so that in a high-latency (i.e. “laggy”) match, the shotgun will be more reliable. We’ve also fixed another bug whereby shotgun and boomshot rounds could strike the ground when firing from the hip.” Finally, Rein talks about additional achievements and achievement handling:

“…on the achievement side we’re adding achievement progress numbers to the War Journal, increasing the frequency of in-game Achievement progression notifications and adding some new Achievements for DLC.”

Epic hope to get the update out within the month, but that may change.

After reports started surfacing last week regarding a possible Epic acquisition by movie financiers, Legendary Pictures, the talk has been dulled by Mark Rein, vice president of Epic, while commenting that the acquisition was “just another rumour”:

“We’re not going to comment on the rumor. We have already publicly announced that we’re working with Legendary pictures on the Gears of War movie and that we have the utmost respect for Thomas Tull and his organisation.”

While that’s not a firm denial of the rumour, it does quell the speculation… for now. Previous rumours that have circulated around an acquisition of Epic include buyouts from EA and Microsoft, both of which never came to pass.