One of the ideas that was considered for the original Gears of War game was to let the player choose the gender of their co-op partner, according to producer Rod Fergusson. However, this did not make the cut into the final game.
“When I first joined Epic, one of my first ideas I had for Cliff [Bleszinksi] was, ‘Hey, how about we get to pick the gender of your co-op player,'” he told IGN. “So there’s Dominic and Dominique and you get to pick whether you want to play as male or female. Cliff laughed at me and we never did it.”
Bleszinkski vetoing the idea might have been for the best, Fergusson said.
“We would have had to write so much branching dialogue, and we basically would have [had] to create two stories,” he explained. “Gears 1 was a trial by fire, and so to create one more scope by saying let’s double the amount of dialogue we need to have…it’s not a free choice.”
Fergusson left Epic Games but is now working on the Gears franchise, which Microsoft has since acquired, at Microsoft’s The Coalition studio.
Gears of War 4 comes out in October, and it offers somewhat of a solution for people who want to play as a female character. Kait Diaz, voice by Laura Bailey, appears in the game.
“What we decided to do, now that Cliff’s not here to veto me, let’s still look at having that ability for the co-op player to have that choice, whether they want to play as male or female,” Fergusson said. “But, instead of having it be different sexes of the same character, just have it be from two different perspectives. So, Dell or Kate. And so, I like that idea of being like, you decide who you want to be as you’re going along on JD’s journey.”
Gears of War 4 launches on October 11 for Xbox One and PC. It’s also an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so you can buy it digitally on Xbox One and get the PC edition free or vice versa.