Bleszinski: RPGs are the future of shooters

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski feels RPGs are the future of shooters and that this "cross-pollinating" of genres could lead to more Heavy Rain style narratives popping up in games.

Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Bleszinski provided examples of what Gears was inspired by and vice versa.

"I've gone on record before, and I said the future of shooters are RPGs, and the shooters that I've liked the most lately are ones like BioShock, which had some light RPG elements, as well as Borderlands, which I continue to gush about, not only because it's our engine of course, but because Randy's a good friend of mine, and it's the kind of game I believe in," he said.

"Moving on from there, game developers have a way of cross-pollinating an immense amount. Gears was influenced by Resident Evil, then Resident Evil 5 was influenced by Gears. So, maybe you'll see elements from more RPGs, or Heavy Rain narrative style elements, start bleeding into the genre".

He goes on to say that Gears 3 will contain some light RPG elements, and how gamers love Mass Effect because it was "like" Gears but with more depth.

"Well, taking away the RPGs and having the narrative is kind of what Gears is in many ways, right? And you'll see a little bit more RPG elements in the next Gears game that are very light," he said.

"The thing that was cool was that Mass Effect is kind of an RPG for me, with the cover-based shooting. I think there's a reason why it's been successful. Because gamers love Gears.

"It's like well, here's something that's like Gears, but even has more depth, and a different setting. It's Star Wars for this new generation, right? Well, and the addition of the potential for having sex in a video game is also very powerful".

Gears of War 3 is expected in 2011, but before that, you'll have Epic and People Can Fly's Bulletstorm to look forward to, which you can get new screens of through here.