Being a Parent in Gears of War 3

Caution! What you are about to read is EXTREMELY spoiler heavy in regards to the story in Gears of War 3. If you haven’t finished the game yet and you will throw your computer across the room if a plot point is spoiled, return to the Gaming Angels home page immediately. YE HAS BEEN WARNED.

Thanks to Twitter and the big mouths that reside there, I knew the day after the game released that there was something extremely sad in the Gears of War 3 story that was not the ending. This extremely sad moment came at the end of Act III, and while it was indeed very, very sad, it did not affect me as much (thank you, big mouths on Twitter) as another moment did in Act V.

When Marcus gets to talk to his father for the first time in 10 years, he does so through a security camera. His father, Adam Fenix, can see him, but not vice versa. When Adam realizes from talking with Anya first that Marcus is indeed there, and he can talk to him and see him, he pauses a bit before turning around and facing the monitor. What happened next completely choked me up. First Adam gently places his hand on the left side of the monitor, almost like he was cupping his son’s cheek. And then, after saying it’s good to see him, he cries, “Wait, how did you get that scar?”

Start at 7:23

I was so thankful it was past midnight and my co-op partner and I had zoned out into not talking before this scene, because he would have heard me swallow a sob if he prompted me to speak. His simple question grabbed my parenting heartstrings and yanked very hard.

Granted, it’s a ridiculous question. They’re in the middle of a war that has been raging for years. It’s a miracle Marcus is alive at all, but as a parent, you always want your child to be in one piece–in one perfect piece. As Marcus’s father, Adam wants Marcus to be in one perfect piece, so seeing the scar on the right side of Marcus’s face affected him to the point of asking such a parenting question, even though they aren’t in the most friendly environments at the moment.

Right there, in that one brief question that gets dismissed as quickly as it was uttered, the love of a parent for a child was perfected in dialogue. Sure, Epic Games expounded upon it later, such as when Adam Fenix asked everyone to promise him that they would live their lives to the fullest when this was over, as well as when Adam comforted Marcus over the death of his comrade. However, all of those scenes were typical as to what you would expect for dramatic interactions between father and son. There’s just something about that first scene that encapsulates that parental feeling so much better than any other interaction between Adam and Marcus.

I talked about that scene to other gamer parents, and we all said the same thing: “Epic Games nailed it.” The closest I’ve ever come to feeling something similar in terms of being a parent was while playing Heavy Rain, albeit that’s a far more extreme example, and Epic definitely did not need to go that far to get their point across. (And thank God they didn’t…don’t really care to relive those feelings again any time soon, thank you.)

So bravo, Epic, for making me want to put my controller down so I could go hug my son and possibly wake him up. Bravo for subtly nailing how a parent will always, always treat their child. Bravo for creating a scene that has stuck with me more than any other scene in all three Gears of War games. And thanks for making me feel a little heartless in terms of not being sad over the death in Act III.