No More Smoking in Gears of War, says The Coalition

This is one of those interesting bits of news that is building a lot of traction online.

Here’s the long and the short of it first: Gears of War developer, The Coalition, has made the decision that starting in Gears of War 4, none of their characters will ever be portrayed smoking.

How it went down is thus: Truth Initiative, an anti-smoking organization, approached eSports peeps and the exclusive rights holder to the broadcast of Gears 5 gameplay, Turner, about how often people are shown smoking in the series. This apparently got their attention enough to reach out to The Coalition, who agreed to work with the organization to scrub the Gears world clean of these cancer sticks.

The Coalition studio head Rob Fergusson had this to say:

"I’ve seen firsthand the devastating impact of smoking. It’s always been important for me to not use smoking as a narrative device, which is why we made the conscious choice to avoid highlighting or glorifying smoking in Gears 5 and throughout the Gears of War Universe moving forward."

 
It’s both funny and admirable that this is the line they’d draw: they certainly don’t hesitate to glorify beefy men with necks the size of bowling balls impaling each other on chainsaws, but smoking? That’s a bridge too far. But it’s still admirable, considering smoking (unlike hulked-out men with chainsaws) is an actual problem that affects millions of people all around the world.

Of course, you’re going to get some people complain about censorship, but since Gears of War 4 launched with no smoking and no one complained then, I very much doubt those critics will have a leg to stand on, such as it were.

What I’m left wondering, though, is if this means The Truth Initiative will start reaching out to other developers and studios. Smoking is kind of a big deal in games like Metal Gear Solid… would a smoke-free Snake even be the same character?

I guess since Konami owns him now it hardly matters anyway.