Weapons of Warone of the video games that helped make both Epic Games and Xbox what they are today will become a movie after a decade and a half of false starts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The franchise will be picked up by Netflix, which is planning both a live-action feature film and an animated TV series. If those are well received by viewers, this could be just the beginning for the franchise on Netflix.
The first Weapons of War game was released this Monday 16 years ago – on November 7, 2006. Since then it has received four direct sequels through 2019 Gears 5, as well as a handful of spin-offs like the one from 2020 Gears Tactics.
Attempts to make it into a movie date back to 2007, when New Line Cinema tried to produce it. It was later explored by Universal Pictures, but nothing ever came together, as so often happens in the studio system.
Funnily enough, Netflix’s current head of original movies, Scott Stuber, was involved as a producer on Universal’s failed attempt at a Weapons of War movie. That said, no actors, directors, or writers have been announced for the project yet, and the film’s release will likely be at least a few more years or more.
The quest to turn Weapons of War in a feature film has been going on for so long, the ownership of the video game series has changed since its inception. The game franchise was originally developed by Epic Games of Unreal and Fortnite fame as a tentpole game for the Xbox 360 console. Microsoft acquired the rights to the franchise in 2014 and Canadian game studio The Coalition, which takes its name from the… Weapons of War universe – has managed the franchise as of 2016 Gears of War 4 and further.
Weapons of War is a science fiction war story set on the fictional planet Sera. An army of alien enemies called the Locust Horde came from underground and decimated human civilization; the games follow soldiers like Marcus Fenix as they fight the locusts and try to save what is left of humanity.
Helped by Unreal developer Cliff Bleszinski, the original games placed a strong emphasis on action and were credited with popularizing the third-person, cover-shooter method of gameplay that dominated so many Western action games in the mid to late 2000s.
Weapons of WarThe influence of the design has been felt in several other popular game franchises since then, including: Mass effect, not mapped, The last of us, and basically anything where the player shoots enemies from a third-person perspective while taking cover behind remarkably ubiquitous chest-high walls. That being said, Weapons of War‘s story, characters and visuals arguably haven’t left as strong a legacy as the design.
Below: The story of Gears of War development from an earlier video published by Ars Technica.
