Gears of War: Judgement

Gears of War: Judgment is a prequel, and takes place a few months after Emergence Day when the Locust first popped their heads up from underground and began their assault on the human population of Sera.

But fans have wondered why Epic didn't aim to highlight a different part of the timeline in the Gears of War universe – like E-Day or the Pendulum Wars, the great 79-year-long war that raged across Sera. The COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) won the Pendulum Wars, and became the global government of Sera.

Both sound like good settings for a video game, right? Sure, but according to Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski, neither would've made for the right game – the latter wouldn't have even been a Gears of War game.

"The time came, we finished Gears 3 and obviously it's done well for us, and a prequel seemed like the next logical step. So 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.' It took the COG a little bit to figure out that the Locust have thick skin and their bayonets are breaking, things like that." Being able to chainsaw scary monster men is essential to anything donning the Gears of War title, you see.

As for the Pendulum Wars, its human-on-human conflict would technically make for a game that isn't Gears of War. "Now you have no chainsaw and now you have no monsters," Bleszinski said. "And now we're not Gears of War anymore. So we looked at the timeframe, looked at the timeline, and figured that there's a window there of several months after Emergence Day, where humanity got hit and quickly got their shit 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."

Gears of War: Judgment launches on the Xbox 360 in early 2013