We know and love Tom Bissell here at Kill Screen. The author of one of our favorite books Extra Lives, reviewer for Grantland, and now writer for Gears of War: Judgement, Tom was actually responsible for the name “Kill Screen.” (It came to him in a fevered dream apparently.)

So to no one’s surprise, Epic Games tapped Tom and his writing partner Rob Auten to produce the script that will become the newest Gears offering. What you may not know is exactly how complicated it is to produce writing within the world of a videogame.  Players often complain that stories get phoned it, but this is more complicated than just bringing writers in early. “The videogame stage is very small,” Tom told me when we traveled to Cary, North Carolina with the Creators Project video team to shoot our newest series.

This creates a new set of challenges but a new opportunity as well. Watch the clip above to see exactly how narrative gets built into a universe like Gears (which isn’t traditionally known for story), the interplay between designers and writers, and what the future of story-telling in games looks like.

Also, check out the rest of our Creators Project videos.

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