Gears design director Cliff Bleszinski took some time to talk to Destructoid about Gears of War’s iconic armor design.

Bleszinski was realistic when I asked what the space armor said about the characters or world it’s based in: “The armor on the characters in Gears of War implies that they’re incredibly strong, resilient, and that they’re shot at on a regular basis,” he said.

But it’s not all about bullets and brutishness. After several iterations, the Epic team settled with armor they felt was “iconic,” and did more than make the men look tough. It was used to reinforce the need to use the game’s cover system.

“We cycled on the armor designs a fair amount until we came to rest on the iconic ‘rounded chestplate/blue emissive’ look,” Bleszinski said. “As with all things in game development, it required many iterations until we found something we all felt was iconic. Above all, it made the characters feel ‘heavy’ so that when the player took cover he really felt like he was slinging a massive entity against a wall.”

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