The traditional theory on the structure of a trilogy goes that the second part leaves the heroes in seemingly inescapable peril. The Empire Strikes Back is the archetype, leaving us with Han frozen in carbonite, Luke minus a hand and up one father, and the Rebel Alliance on the back foot as the Empire, as the title suggests, strikes back.

A formidable team

What little ending Halo 2 had saw the Flood on the way to Earth, which was already on the brink of falling to the Covenant. And by the end of Gears Of War 2, humanity was forced to scuttle from its one remaining stronghold as an even more dangerous foe than the seemingly unstoppable Locust Horde came to the fore.

The purpose of this narrative device is, of course, to make the triumphant victory of the forces of good in the concluding chapter all the more satisfying as they forge their way back from the brink of defeat. From what we’ve seen so far, however, Gears Of War 3 looks to be taking a different tack as it brings the story to a close.

Far from immediately regrouping for that glorious counter-offensive, the failure of the COG’s final gambit to defeat the Locust has left it divided, broken into disparate groups who are looking out for their own. Humans and Locust continue to meet in skirmishes, but these all too often end in the Lambent Locust, mutated by exposure to Sera’s seas of imulsion, arriving via their Lambent Stalks and putting the hurt on both sides.

Copping a look

Anyone who finished Gears 2 will be familiar with what the yellow stuff can do to Drones and even the mighty Brumak, but this instalment will show its effects across the spectrum of Locust species. We’ve already been shown what it can do to Berserkers, the first game’s blind but almost indestructible Locust warriors, which transform into tentacled, agile opponents, now capable of giving their only previous weak point, the Hammer of Dawn orbital laser, the runaround.

Bringing down a Lambent Berserker is going to either require some even bigger ordnance or some serious creative thinking – either way, the possibilities are exciting.

Gears 3 also looks to be bringing some much-needed variety to the locales, with one revealed area in particular looking a far cry from the usual grey and brown ruined cities and underground catacombs. The presciently named Char is all that’s left of one of the razed cities outside Jacinto, with the remains of its population frozen in ashen statues like the real-life ruins of Pompeii.

Far from being destroyed by a natural disaster, though, Char was… charred by the COG in a blaze of Hammer of Dawn attacks – an attempt to deny the Locust a position of strategic importance at the expense of many lives.

The creation of Char is one of the black spots on humanity’s history in the Gears universe, and an example of the desperate atrocities committed by the COG that led to the distrust of the organisation on the part of the Stranded. Its prominent position in the game’s first trailer hints at its importance, and the crumbling remains of the city’s population look to be an iconic motif of the region, reduced to random piles of dust as they’re ravaged by charging combatants and bullets.

Everyone remembers the ‘meatcube’ physics demo that was utilised to gruesome effect in Gears 2’s self-explanatory ‘Intestinal Fortitude’ chapter, so Char is likely to be Gears 3’s corresponding physics showpiece.

… continued