A rare and mysterious build of Gears of War 3 has been released by its owner to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its creation.
There are a number of mysteries in gaming’s past, one of which is why a PS3 version of Gears of War 3 exists. Other than a foray onto PC, the Gears franchise has been an Xbox exclusive ever since it was first launched. However, last year a former hacker named PixelButts treated the world to a playthrough of an unreleased PS3 version of the game, which you can check out below.
PixelButts revealed the footage to the world to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the game being created. One year on, PixelButts is back to mark the tenth anniversary of the mysterious game’s creation. They have done that by releasing the PS3 version of Gears 3 to the world. You can download and play it right now providing you have the right tools.
No, not just a PS3. Since the game requires more ram to run, Gears 3 on PS3 only works on a devkit. Information regarding everything you need in order to play the game, including the game itself, can be found in the Internet Archive. PixelButts is of the belief they are the only one who has the original version of this game, and others to have appeared online over the years are just versions built using Gears 3’s leaked source code.
Exactly why Epic, which headed up the Gears franchise when the third installment was released on Xbox 360, created the game for PS3 remained unclear for a while. However, in a statement to Kotaku, after the above playthrough appeared online, an Epic rep explained why the game exists. “This footage is a byproduct of Epic’s internal Unreal Engine 3 testing process, which utilized both Gears and Unreal Tournament,” they explained. “[It] was never part of any actual product work for PlayStation 3.”
Epic would later sell the Gears franchise to Microsoft, meaning subsequent chapters in the franchise will almost definitely not have had PlayStation versions created, experimental or not. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney would later reveal the cost to make Gears games compared to the profit from sales is what prompted the franchise’s sale to Microsoft.
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