Gears of War 2 Designer Discusses Japanese Launch

Gears of War 2 been out in the West for nearly a year and it finally came out in Japan last week. Before the launch I spoke with Cliff Bleszinski, Lead Designer, of Gears of War 2 and asked what he thought about bringing Gears 2 to Japan.

How do you feel about the Japanese version of Gears of War 2?

Cliff Bleszinski, Lead Designer: They actually did a really good job casting the voices. Marcus sounds like, you know, how a Japanese version of Marcus would sound like and Cole Train always translates hilariously into other languages. [In an impression] It’s Cole Train woo!

It’s fun to play. It’s fun to see the subtitling and everything like that. We do have a share of Japanese fans out there and we’re glad we could fill the promise of letting them play Gears 2 in their local language.

Was it difficult to release Gears of War 2 in Japan because of CERO’s restrictions and the CERO Z rating?

Yeah, that can always potentially limit sales, but we’re a business. We would not do it if it wasn’t something we believed was worthwhile and would help keep the lights on at the end of the day.

Personally, I didn’t have a lot of involvement with it. It was basically Rod Fergusson, the Executive Producer, was handling entire thing. All of the sudden I get to see a bunch of videos or see a version of the game that’s all of the sudden in Japanese. Seeing the first game was really surreal, as well. It’s a global market this day and age and you need to cater to all of those markets as much as possible.

How do you feel about the 38/40 score by Famitsu?

I didn’t know that, that’s amazing to hear. Famitsu been around forever and that’s an honor. That’s amazing.

Did you ever see the Japanese viral marketing for Gears of War with the monster…

… under the bed or whatever and she became friends with it and everything. That was surreal. As with many things that come out of Japan it didn’t make much sense, but it was incredibly charming. It was cool.

What would you say to your fans in Japan who are buying Gears of War 2 now?

I’m glad that they’re playing. I hope they keep playing. I hope they get online as well, I’m not sure how available Xbox Live is over there right now. Keep playing and well keep making more.