Epic: For the third Gears of War, less is more

Gears of War 2 was about being bigger, better and more badass. For Gears of War 3, it's all about adding "less". At least, that's according to executive producer Rod Fergusson.

"Part of it is that you always want to do more, more, more, and when we did Gears 2 we had a 'new, better, more' process," he told Edge when asked how difficult it was to add, keep and remove stuff from the game.

"But going from 2 to 3, we've actually added less. We've changed it to be a NMBL – new, more, better, less – process instead. And we figured out there were some things we wanted to reduce down. But then, knowing it's the last one, you kind of think, 'Let's just shove as much in as possible' - but that's not our way."

Fergusson continued: "We're always focussed on quality and polish, and we know that for every feature you add, you're taking polish away from other features. You have to find what the game is actually about, rather than just make a collection of random features."

Less is more. Gears of War 3 launches worldwide on September 20 for Xbox 360. A public multiplayer beta will launch on April 25, or April 18 if you own a copy of the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm.