Gears of War: E-Day Missing Classic Features From Original Games

Classic features such as taking enemies hostage as "meat shields" and dueling with the chainsaw attachments on Lancer assault rifles won't be in Gears of War: E-Day at launch. According to a developer blog from The Coalition, it wasn't possible to build these features out for launch because this prequel was built from scratch, rather than on the bones of previous Gears of War titles.

"We started E-Day with an empty hard drive building our entire gameplay sandbox from scratch to ensure a more unified gameplay experience across Campaign, PVE and PVP," The Coalition said. "This new sandbox also allowed for innovation in cover, combat and enemies. The trade-off being that including every legacy feature from Gears of War was not possible for launch."

The developer said it is working hard to deliver these features, along with Private Lobbies and leaderboards, post-launch or in its next title. …