Epic never considered four-player Gears 2 co-op

Cliff Bleszinski says game would no longer be about story and instead would be about 'shooting shit'.

Epic never considered making the campaign for Gears of War 2 four-player, Cliff Bleszinski has revealed.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com at a recent preview event in London, the celebrity Gears of War designer said that four-player campaign co-op was "never something that was in a state of flux" because it would adversely affect the game's story.

Prior to E3 in July, Gears fans had harboured some hope that the sequel to one of the Xbox 360's best games would make the jump from two-player co-op to four-player co-op.

However, when we caught up with Bleszinski recently, he revealed that more than two-player co-operative play was something Epic reserved for the new five-player Horde game mode instead.

"We knew from the get go that we'd go with two players," he said. "It was never something that was in a state of flux. It was always two players. Being narrative and story based it's not a clone of Marcus Fenix, it's Dom. And that's always player two. And once you start with three of four players the game is no longer about the narrative, it's about shooting shit. And therefore we said let's do that in Horde."

When asked if Epic's decision was in part influenced by Halo 3's four-player campaign co-op, and the relatively unknown non-Master Chief and Arbiter characters who made up the numbers, Bleszinski replied: "I just found it awkward when you have something going on and there's these other guys just hanging around during all these story bits and nobody's addressing them, things like that. We're just committed to making Marcus and Dom's experience strong in the campaign and making sure that Horde is where the larger scale of shooting together with your buddies happens."

So there you have it. Four-player Gears of War 2 campaign co-op never had a chance of happening. You can find out how two-player co-op plays in our monster hands-on preview of Act One right here.