WRAL Tech Wire

Epic Games’ heroes take their guns to a new world – ‘Lost Planet 2’

Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of Local Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.

CARY, N.C. – “Gears of War” world fans around the world – and there are millions of them – can get a new taste of their virtual heroes Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago – but NOT in an Epic Games title.

Instead, the locust slayers from Gears and its sequel appear as crossovers in the newly announced “Lost Planet 2” from Capcom games.

Fenix and Santiago show up in a video trailer about the game. (Click here to view it.)

Capcom later reported that “Marcus and Dom from Gears of War are customizable characters!”

GamePro hailed the announcement as the “sexiest slice of [Capcom] news is that two of the Xbox's biggest guns - Marcus and Dom from Gears of War - will be appearing in Lost Planet 2.”

Contacted by The Skinny, the folks at Epic said they planned no formal announcement about the crossover but did provide a number of links referencing the new gig for Marcus and Dom.

The Gears empire, developed by Epic Games in Cary, has produced two multi-million copy selling games, a movie, books, action figures and even replicas of chainsaw-equipped assault rifles.

Now, Fenix and Santiago are playing heroic figures in another world.

Cliff Bleszinski, otherwise known as Cliffy B. and one of the key creative forces behind Epic’s blossoming games empire, hinted at the crossover in posts at Twitter. (One noted: “kick ass news soon. VERY soon. Watch this space.)

Tuesday morning, the game site Kotaku headlined the news along with a video link.

“In a collaboration with Capcom, American game developer Epic is lending Gears of War 's main characters Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago to upcoming action title Lost Planet 2,” Kotaku reported.

More specifics about the Fenix and Santiago appearance are not known, however.

“The appearance of both Gears characters in Lost Planet 2 was revealed in a trailer shown today at Xbox Japan's Capcom event,” Kotaku noted.

“It is believed that the characters will be available as exclusive downloadable characters for the Xbox 360 and will not be appearing in the game's story mode. This is still unconfirmed, however.”

John Funk, writing at The Escapist (which is based in Durham) Web site, notes that the crossover “does make sense in a way - Lost Planet 2 designer Jun Takeuchi has been a very fervent admirer of Epic's Gears of War games, even going so far to say that the controls in his Resident Evil 5 were influenced by the games (though sadly, RE5 did not feature chainsaw rifles).”

Plus – Cliffy B Picks His Favorite Games

Cliffy B is “featured in USA Today’s games section as a select group chosen to pick their favorite five games of the past decade.

His choices, listed by year of release:

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) which he calls a “next level” achievement

Half-Life 2 (2004) which he hails for “pacing, polish” and “intelligence”

Resident Evil 4 (2005) which he labels as a game that “oozed polish from start to finish”

BioShock (2007) which he touts as “stellar writing”

Portal (2007) which he says is a “brilliant exercise in minimalist game design”

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The Skinny

WRAL Local Tech Wire Publisher and Editor Rick Smith dishes out tidbits from the local technology sector. Read more articles…