Epic Games ended up having a very big night at the Spike “Video Game Awards”, even though “Gears of Wars 3” didn’t come home with any monkey statues.

Epic stole the show with its world premiere teaser trailer for its new franchise, FORTnITE.

After introducing the trailer to the world during the live broadcast, which was streamed around the globe online, Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski took some time to answer some questions about the new game and discuss Gears of War 3.

Will FORTnITE offer some of Epic’s traditional shooter experience?

Yeah. I can’t go into too much detail since we wanted to have just a little bit of a teaser out there, but I can tell you traditionally we make shooters and shooting is in there, but it’s really not what the game is all about. It’s really a game that is more about survival than anything else.

Any idea where we’ll see FORTnITE or if it’s going to be a downloadable game?

We haven’t announced what it’s going to be yet. We’re still figuring that out. It was a project that was pitched internally several months ago that came together lightning fast. It’s something that seems like a no-brainer to build and we’re still figuring out what to do with the lightning we have in a bottle.

What are your thoughts on the Gears nominations at the “Video Game Awards”?

It’s been great, but I was a little upset to see that Carlos (Ferro, who plays Dom) wasn’t nominated. A lot of the voice actors are represented here. John Di Maggio, who plays Marcus is here, Claudia Black who’s Sam in Gears as well as Chloe in Uncharted is here. Nolan North, who is in every single videogame known to man is here. It’s one of those things that you know Carlos, if he could show up he would; right. He goes to all these events. I’m extraordinarily proud of the performance he turned in and judging by the reading of the You Tube comments on that death scene, it clearly has had a significant impact. So I just hope in the future we keep celebrating the talent.

What are your thoughts on the reviews that Gears of War 3, especially after the Eurogamer controversy?

That became a really weird controversy where I was at a press junket and I made a joke about Eurogamer giving Gears 3 an 8. My feeling was that Gears 3 is clearly better than Gears 2 and the fact that they gave Gears 2 a 9 and then Gears 3 an 8, but you know what journalists are journalists. They’re more than entitled to review the game and as long as they’re honest and they say it from their gut, what can you do? It is what it is.

What’s next for Gears?

We have Raam’s Shadow, which is the DLC [downloadable content] dropping I believe December 13. It’s a really meaty, solid campaign that lasts a good three and a half hours. As for the future, who knows. We could be faced with a console transition at some point and we would certainly love to make more experiences in the Gears universe. If we get around to it, I want to make sure we switch it up sufficiently so it still feels like Gears DNA, but it feels fresh and new.

What’s going on with the Gears of War Hollywood movie?

It’s still in a little bit of a movie development limbo right now, but hopefully with the success of 3, we’ll see it kind of poke back up.

What would you like to do next with the Unreal franchise?

I’m going to tell you right now if you could magically double Epic’s team temporarily and just build another game like that, I’d love to do it. I have all sorts of crazy ideas … like I think it would be amazing to reboot the original Unreal with kind of a Fallout vibe, but it’s more about exploration than it is about action. And it would have more RPG elements. But we’re a slave to our success with games like Gears and Infinity Blade, and thankfully we’re able to craft a new IP with something like FORTnITE now.

What are your thoughts on Gears of War characters being included in Mortal Kombat?

We had talked about it before they shipped, but ultimately it proved that it wasn’t going to happen and so we had talked about it for DLC. But honestly we just haven’t picked up that email chain. I grew up with Mortal Kombat. I absolutely love it and I’m in a position where so many of the talented people I grew up with like Ice-T and Ed (Boon) and all of these amazing videogame designers are now my peers, which is just straight up weird.

Who would you like to see in a Mortal Kombat game?

I’d love to see Clayton Carmine in there. With that voice because he’s just this character with a giant bulging muscles and that squeaking voice. It’s such a great contrast. There’s the curb stom and he would do the face punch until the head explodes. We have executions, so they translate naturally.

Would you ever see Gears migrating to another console outside of Microsoft?

We have a good deal with Microsoft so that’s the home of Gears for the foreseeable future. I mean business is business, man. But we can speculate about anything. Like what if streaming online services decided they wanted to make a great deal with us, then Gears would be a streaming game. But as of right now, Microsoft has been an amazing partner for us.

What are you playing these days?

Skyrim is my favorite game since the original Zelda. I’ve been playing that game a lot and it’s so good.

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