Gears 2 update possible thanks to continued community support

Cliff Bleszinski has said that Title Update 6 for Gears of War 2 would not have been possible without continued community support and suggestions.

Speaking with CVG, Bleszinski had a lot to say about the fan base and how Epic keeps a close eye on the UDK community.

"We've always had a tradition of supporting our products as well as a continued culture of ongoing learning," he said. "The launch of Gears 2's online was bumpy, [and] over the last while, we've continued to tweak and refine that experience through regular title updates that not only improve the online performance and matchmaking times but also tune the game and weapon balance.

"Many of those game tweaks have come from our design team interacting with our fans on the official Epic forums.

"The gaming world right now is filled with so many stellar games vying for players attention and the best way to remain successful and relevant is by keeping your fans happy. Listening to them, interacting with them, and quite often simply giving them what they want when possible keeps them engaged as long term fans of your studio.

"Bungie and Blizzard have done a stellar job at this and we're evolving into a studio that embraces our fan base more than ever. Besides, today's Epic fan or a promising UDK modder could be tomorrow's star Epic programmer/designer."

The latest update is slated for sometime next week, and Gears 3 is on the doc for 2011.