Gears of War: Judgment’s OverRun designed with eSports in mind, heavily-influenced by MOBAs

In an interview with Forbes, Quinn DelHoyo spoke of Epic Games and some of their influences for Gears of War: Judgment. Through the Unreal Engine 3, Judgment is being designed with a future in eSports in mind. There will specifically be a mode called “OverRun” that will loosely mimic popular MOBA games. With the huge and ever growing dent that MOBA titles have left in eSports, this doesn’t surprise me in the least.

As a big fan of eSports, Quinn wanted to draw in the essence of Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas into this prequel to the Gears of War franchise. OverRun is a competitive class-based multiplayer mode that:

…actually has influences from MOBA games like League of Legends and Dota, where you have a map and there are three lanes on those games. In our game, we decided to have two lanes on all the OverRun maps. You have a left and a right lane to make the combat focused and intense and fast paced. That was one of the influences we had in making the game. From a spectator perspective because it’s a third person camera, OverRun is good for eSports because you can see who the player is controlling.

“This guy is a boomer or a mauler and this is what he can do. These are his abilities.” If he has a Kantus coming by him, you can predict what is going to happen. And that builds the drama and the intensity that people that watch sports or eSports really enjoy.

Quinn also admits that Epic is designing OverRun to be simple and easy to pick up. In a perfect world, anyone should be able to watch an eSport game and get the general idea of what is going on – much like if someone just sat down and watched baseball or football. They probably won’t understand the strategies or advanced tactics, but they’ll know at least which team to cheer for and what the general concepts are. This is a goal Epic Games is trying to reach with Judgment’s OverRun mode. 

I’ll admit, I have been excited for a Gears of War game perhaps ever… but the allure of the MOBA mode is like a siren’s song to me.

[Forbes]