Gears of War: Judgement's timeframe chosen for chainsaws

When Epic sat down to conceptualise a prequel to the Gears of War series, it had a couple of important factors to consider. Most importantly: chainsaws.

"We started looking at the timeframes and what we could do. I looked at E-Day and was like, 'Yeah, there's no chainsaw on E-Day,'" series creator Cliff Bleszinski told Joystiq.

"It took the COG a little bit to figure out that the Locust have thick skin and their bayonets are breaking, things like that."

Bleszinski also ruled out the Pendulum Wars, another importan conflict in the franchise's fiction.

"Now you have no chainsaw and now you have no monsters, and now we're not Gears of War anymore," he said.

Judgement is set in a period of several months after Emergence Day, after humans started to fight back.

"Humanity got hit and quickly got their s**t back together and figured out, hey, put a chainsaw on the end of the gun – that'll help. So that's the timeframe for the game," Bleszinski explained.

Gears of War: Judgement is expected later this year.