looks like People Can Fly's Gears of War: Judgment is going to be different (a la Infinity Ward vs Treyarch). I'm not sure how I'll like the changes...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/judgment-is-not-your-usual-gears-of-war/
People Can Fly has also revamped the control scheme in Judgment to reflect the game's faster, more lethal nature. Weapons can now be swapped with a single button tap, or a press-and-hold move to switch to pistols. "We had three [Gears] games using a certain control scheme and it seemed to be working pretty well, considering the sales," said Chmielarz, "but once we put [the new control scheme] in the game and experimented with it, it took us like five minutes to realize this was the way to go."
Multiplayer is also seeing a bit of an overhaul in Judgment through a new team-based multiplayer mode called Overrun, which pits human COG players protecting a generator against Locust players trying to destroy it. Overrun is Gears' first class-based multiplayer mode, featuring new character types, each with its own unique weapon sets and abilities: medics that can heal companions, engineers that can put down protective turrets, and so on. While COG players work to repair and maintain pre-placed barbed wire fortifications around the generator, Locust players will earn points through damage, unlocking the use of familiar Locust creatures including Tickers, Wretches, Grenadiers, the Kantus, Bloodmounts, Corpsers, Serapedes, and Maulers during the match.
"The beautiful thing about Overrun is the synergy effect of combining the classes," Chmielarz noted. "We have the Ticker and the Ticker has this ability to eat a grenade. Somebody from COG throws a grenade, the Ticker quickly eats it, the team is saved, but then when [the Ticker] explodes, obviously that explosion is so much more powerful. So I was playing against our guys at [People Can Fly] and I saw the strategy of the opposite team was that they started with a Grenadier throwing their own grenade, had the Ticker eat it, had the Grenadier kick the Ticker in the butt so it actually goes over the fortifications…and then you have this rocket charging towards your generator with a grenade in its belly."
Judgment's story, setting, and presentation mess with the established Gears formula as well. The game tells the story of Baird, fellow franchise star Augustus Cole, and the rest of Kilo Squad fifteen years before the first Gears of War. Kilo Squad is on trial for treason and various other court-martial offenses, and each level of Judgment follows Baird's testimony during the trial.
This overarching story has a direct effect on the way gameplay will evolve through multiple playthroughs. Playing through a level once will give players the "classified" version that Baird first recounts in court. After that, players will have access to an unclassified version, which better reflects Baird's unvarnished recollection of the battle. Chmielarz said the "unclassified" playthrough will add crucial narrative details, different enemy types, and additional challenges like weapon set limitations or time limits. For example, Baird's "classified" recollection may have neglected to include the fact that a mech had been available to Kilo Squad during an engagement, but the mech will be there in the second, "unclassified" playthrough.
Chmielarz said that Judgment will feature more Locust simultaneously on screen than in any previous Gears game. Their behavior will be determined in part by the smart spawn system (S3), a new AI setup that analyzes player performance and location and uses that information to decide where enemies will spawn and what tactics they'll use. Thanks to S3, the developers said that players won't be able to learn and exploit patterns in the levels and that no two playthroughs of a level will be the same.
The major change Chmielarz has brought to the Gears franchise is upping the ante on the challenge level. "The big idea behind the campaign was that we want people to fear the Locust again, like the first time you played Gears," Chmielarz told Ars Technica. "This game is all about challenge... we believe that the fun comes from being challenged and overcoming that challenge."