At the Xbox Games Showcase this June, Microsoft debuted a trailer for the eighth game in the violent, grandiose and unexpectedly maudlin Gears of War series: a prequel. The sight of series heroes Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago as younger men is "an emotional homecoming like no other", as Microsoft's Xbox blog put it. But the real tug at the heartstrings comes with the first notes of a slow, instrumental rendition of Tears for Fears' Mad World. "As a 41-year-old man, that piano got me tearing up," wrote one YouTube commenter. It's a throwback to the original, iconic Gears of War trailer from 2006, in which a lonesome Fenix picks through his ruined world to Gary Jules' plaintive cover of the same song.

Cliff Bleszinski was lead designer on the popular video game Gears of War, and also worked on other classic titles such as Unreal and Fortnite. His new memoir Control Freak describes his rise from Nintendo fanboy to rock star game designer. "It's 300 pages of my life story, starting when I was a pimply faced teenager who didn't really have any friends or even a girlfriend," Bleszinski says in Episode 531 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "I didn't really like the world in which I lived, so I decided to pursue a career in the video game industry, in which I could not only manipulate the worlds that I played--in the games that I played--but also create those worlds myself." Control Freak is a surprisingly candid look into the life of a game designer, detailing Bleszinski's many mistakes and insecurities.

Zöe Curnoe, a senior producer at video game developer The Coalition, lets out a long sigh. We've just reminded her about a tweet from Cliff Bleszinski, the former lead designer on the Gears of War franchise, which she has worked on for several years. Gears 5, the latest title in the Gears of War series, has a female protagonist for the first time. "Not gonna lie," wrote Bleszinski. "Seeing a woman on the cover of a Gears game makes me happy. I was told for decades'games with female leads don't sell.'"