Imagine if Jaws had started with the boat heading out to kill the shark.
Would Alien be as effective if the movie opened after the chestburster scene had already taken place, and the rest of the crew were chasing down the Xenomorph? Would The Exorcist go down as one of the greatest films ever made if the first scene was the two priests arriving at Regan’s house to perform the exorcism?
Some of the best stories in popular culture are effective because you’re with the characters when their world changes. You’re there with Sam Neill when he sees a brontosaurus for the first time, you see Sarah Connor at a nightclub being attacked by the T-800.
King Kong’s rampage in New York is all the more meaningful because you saw him in his original habitat first and you saw him being captured, so you know he’s a trapped animal rather than just a grumpy old sod.
Of course, sometimes a story won’t start from the beginning, but further down the line, slowly revealing its backstory for the audience along the way. The most obvious example of this is the first Star Wars trilogy – over the course of episodes 4, 5 and 6 of this space opera, the gaps were filled in for the audience, explaining what happened before the characters got to this point.
The original Gears of War went with a similar idea. That first Xbox 360 game, released back in 2006, isn’t about the moment a peaceful world is suddenly being taken over, but instead takes place 14 years after Emergence Day, the day the Locust Horde overran the planet Sera and declared war on humanity.
When we first meet Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, they’re grizzled veterans – not only after fighting the Locust for nearly a decade and a half, but from fighting in the Pendulum Wars before that. This war is new to us, but they’ve been fighting it their entire adult lives.
22 years after Star Wars was released, George Lucas gave fans Star Wars: Episode I, allowing them to finally see – for better or worse – the events leading up to the movies they loved so much. Now Gears of War fans are about to get the same thing, and even though they may not realise it they’ve waited almost as long – 20 years – to finally experience the events of Emergence Day first-hand.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/gears-of-war-e-days-campaign-blends-fresh-combat-with-the-franchises-most-emotional-story-yet/
