In a session about designing Gears of War, CliffyB talked about how the iterative process was important in making this game. He stated that he was very fond of this style of game design, because when he starts making a title he doesn't know where he's actually going, so it helps him. Before getting fully underway in his presentation, CliffyB noted a particular fondness for Jazz Jackrabbit (his first game) since it allowed him to get a car and escape his parents' place. He put out a general call for anyone who'd be willing to port the PC 2D platformer to Live Arcade.

Switching back to Gears of War, he said that the title started out as more of a FPS titled Unreal Warfare. Originally, the game was going to concentrate on large scale battles and territory control. The name for the enemies was going to be Geist originally, but Nintendo already had a game named that, so they were compelled to go with the Locust. Game design was primarily influenced by Resident Evil 4 and kill.switch, and in the latter game he was impressed by the cover usage. In the end, they referred to the game as Resident kill.switch. The new design direction they were going in was more "stop and pop" as opposed to the fast pasted combat from Unreal Tournament. They had a lot of extra features, like combat cash and a morale meter planned, but ultimately they were dropped so the player would not be discouraged. They also had a complicated system for orders, but they didn't want to bog the player down. They were not trying to make the next Full Spectrum Warrior, CliffyB joked.

He detailed that, in the iterative process, you first start out with design meetings. Later, you give out design documentation to everyone, make sure people are up to speed, implement your features, test them out, nudge your team in certain directions, and repeat as necessary with every new feature. CliffyB emphasized how you need to establish creative guidelines, referencing again the "stop and pop" gameplay, saying it is built on trade offs and is different than a fast paced game. They decided early on that there would be no aliens from space and were conscious of the high tech vs low tech distinction with things like a helicopter but also fantastic weapons like the laser Hammer of Dawn. They also remained aware of cliches, and vowed to have no lava levels, substituting "emulsion fluid" instead. They were very firm that there would be no cigar chomping heroes stopping around and no dropships like so many other similar games seem to be fond of.

CliffyB then noted the tools that were important in developing Gears of War, including FRAPS, Test Track Pro, Outlook (for email) and a method he called "Personal Harassment." With that last one, he admonished those who constantly emailed work mates who are working in the same office, encouraging them to communicate on a personal basis. He went on to note with some status that he can't enjoy games the way he used to since before he became a designer, (because of a constant critical eye) but he said it is useful in determining the type of games he wants to make. As for some of the "gamey" qualities in Gears of War, they knew they wanted checkpoints, cinematic quality, and game play over cutscenes. CliffyB said that Microsoft didn't want them to show off the chainsaw in the original trailer, saving it for E3. He noted the give and take in the design process, the necessity of hashing out the roles of the leads, mutual respect being important.

He made special note of the camera, and how important it is to third-person shooters and that he sees it as key in next gen. With what they did with the camera in Gears of War, they wanted to differentiate it from Unreal. He thought it'd be a shame not to see these guys on the screen. He likes the offset camera (over the shoulder) used in Gears of War and Resident Evil 4. He noted the way the camera adjusted in the game, such as when you're behind cover you have wider view and when you're aiming you get narrower close-up view of your enemy target.

Some of the goals in creating the game were to make cover essential, encouraging players to be tactical. He wanted to avoid "fuzzy cover" and make sure the cover points are obvious. They wanted to consolidate the A button and use it to move quickly and they toyed around with toggle methods for cover. The idea of cover chaining and being drawn towards points of cover was inspired by Bionic Commando, of all things. Since the game was coming to Xbox 360, Epic did some things to accommodate players of Halo, not changing the control scheme drastically, but they did implement some important changes as needed, such as using the Y button to "look at cool s***" and having a reload minigame. Ultimately, the jump and duck button were lost, but he saw that as okay since it was a slower game.

As far as weapons go, they were influenced by Rambo to make a Torque bow, a sort of wrist mounted missile launcher. They didn't want any portable laser weapons, only more visceral gunpowder based weapons like shotguns and machine guns, with the only laser weapon being the Hammer of Dawn (satellite linked laser beam that comes down from sky).

Epic also iterated the grenades until they decided to make bolo grenades, and this was helpful for gameplay since you could spot enemies swinging the grenades before tossing them.

CliffyB ended by talking about how the multiplayer aspect was iterated, an important component for the most played game over Live. When designing the maps, they made sure not to make the design circular (such as those in Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike). They also put a great deal of emphasis on the DBNO "down but not out" strategies, where downed players can be resurrected or used as bait. For a while grenade "stickies" were used in multiplayer, but they had to eventually patch that since it was used way too much as a cheap way of defeating others.