Gears of War/Trivia

• Ascended Fanon: According to Word of God, Ice T jokingly asked Cliff Bleszinski over the phone why he wasn't in Gears of War 3, when Michael B. Jordan was cast to voice Jace. Cliff later met with Ice T personally and said Epic Games could make that into a reality, thus was born Griffin.
• Banned In Germany: The violence alone might have been enough, but the fact they built the COG's look and much of its ethos on the Third Reich must have cinched it. Averted with Gears of War 3: And The German Fandom Rejoiced.
• Executive Meddling: Microsoft pushing the release date of Gears of War 3 back five whole months from April 2011 to September 2011. It is arguably a positive example of meddling from higherups: Epic Games may not have done a multi-player beta if this had been released as scheduled and they themselves seemed happy about a chance to polish everything to a spit shine.
• Follow the Leader: Gears of War inspired a wave of third-person shooters and/or Take Cover games that is still ongoing, like Army of Two, Mass Effect and Transformers: War for Cybertron. Similarly, it's also almost unthinkable these days to play a shooter without a "Horde"-inspired 'endless waves of enemies' mode.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Dee Bradley Baker is the voice of RAAM, also the voice of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple, as well as the voice of The Gravemind and Viewtiful Joe.
  • John Dimaggio voices Marcus, also known as Bender and the Scotsman.
  • Queen Myrrah is voiced by Carolyn Seymour, or Dr. Chakwas from Mass Effect.
    • Commander Shepard appears as a leader of the Stranded within a warehouse in Hanover.
  • Where the fuck is Wallace!? In Gears of War 3 as Jace.
  • In Gears of War 3 Multi-player, anything is possible when your Gear smells like COG Gear and not a Locust. We're riding a Brumak.
  • Jace Stratton is voiced by Michael B. Jordan, also known as East Dillon Lions quarterback Vince Howard.
  • Agustus 'Cole Train' Cole is voiced by Lester Speight who we know best for Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.
  • Samantha 'Sam' Bryne is voice by Claudia Black.
  • Ice T lends his voice in Gears of War 3 as the COG-hating Griffin.
  • Dwight Schultz takes over the role of Chairman Prescott in Gears of War 3.
    • For the DLC, RAAM's Shadow, Barrick is Rick Wasserman, better known as Thor.
    • Valera is Laura Bailey, using a European version of her Lust voice.
  • In the Japanese version of the games:
    • Marcus Fenix is Gosukugi.
    • Victor Hoffman is Seymour "Big" Cheese/Kitsunezuka Ko'on-no-Kami.
    • Anya Stroud is Scarlet Miroku in the first game and replaced by Rin Sawamura.
    • Maria Santiago is Risty, Marida Cruz and Matsu.
    • Richard Prescott is the other Seth.
• Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition: Two of these for Adam Fenix in Gears of War 3: purchasing either one allows the player to unlock his skin for multi-player.
• The Other Darrin: Jace had a few lines in Gears of War 2 (with a borderline Aussie accent) before the graphic novels turned him into an Ascended Extra and not just a generic Gear in a helmet.
  • Drake was originally signed on to voice him in Gears of War 3 before scheduling conflicts came up to prevent it.
    • And he also gets a new voice actor for his younger self in "RAAM's Shadow".
• Shrug of God: As explained by David Nashty and Karen Traviss, the writers actually did have a confirmed backstory for Myrrah, New Hope and the Sires. However, Epic went to the effort of deleting the Q&A post by Nashty revealing this backstory, leaving its "canon" status up in the air (see the Discussion section for details).
• What Could Have Been: The series staple, the Lancer/Chainsaw Bayonet, was on the edge of whether it was going to be actually included in the game. It wasn't until they devised the design of it being integrated into the grip that they devised a semi-plausible chainsaw mounted assault rifle. Somewhere, a group of Gnasher-only "Stop Having Fun!" Guys are cursing their rotten luck.
  • In hindsight, knocking the Corpser into Imulsion probably wasn't the greatest idea. Good thing the Lightmass Bomb took care of it.
  • Franklin Tsoko was going to show up in Gears of War 2 as a captive of the Locust, but that section of the game was cut but appeared in the "Road to Ruin" DLC.