Cliff Bleszinski settled almost a week of "Gears of War 3" speculation on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" Monday and premiered a first-look trailer titled "Ashes to Ashes." Over the course of CliffyB's chat with Jimmy and Microsoft's subsequent marketing push, which kicked off shortly thereafter, lots of info nuggets rolled out. Among these were the game's international release dates, slated for 2011 on April 5th, 7th and 8th in North America, Japan and Europe, respectively.
"It's actually the worst kept secret in the video game industry that we're working on 'Gears of War 3,'" the Epic Games design director told Fallon before introducing the trailer. If "Gears 3" wasn't the worst kept secret before last night, it was at least one of them after an announcement message leaked onto Xbox Live a few days ago.
Bleszinski opened up on a few more details after the trailer concluded, such as the presence of female solidiers.
"We have female soldiers finally in the game," he explained. A tweet today confirmed that the blonde shown in the trailer is Anya from earlier in the Gears trilogy's story.
The "Ashes to Ashes" trailer, meanwhile, revealed more about mood and story than it did about gameplay, but the music and ash statues made for one sad looking world. We have a whole year ahead to watch more sequences, screenshots and demos trickle out, though, so Epic is ahead of the game at this point compared to most games launching next April.
What did you think of the trailer last night? Did Bleszinski surprise you with anything? Share your opinions in the comment section below.