Buoyed by some commendatory early reviews and fantastic initial player numbers, Gears of War: E-Day has found a solid audience a weekend before general release. And a large part of its appeal is the combat; I noted in my review I think it's the tightest Gears has ever been, augmented by some innovative thinking around the series' (in)famous weaponry, and a combat system that allows for a gushing release of tension with every wet, crunchy kill.

And it turns out there's a lot more intricate thought behind this eruption of violence than perhaps people realise, as I discovered in an interview with Coalition studio art director Aryan Hanbeck, brand director Nicole Fawcett, and creative director Matt Searcy.

"Think about getting a headshot, right, a really good headshot," says Hanbeck. "A lot of work goes into that moment, into what happens on the screen when you take a headshot. There's an audio component to that, too, as well as all the effects - how high the blood spurts go, how much mist we leave behind, what the body does afterwards… So, it's not just the weapon itself, it's what you see and hear when you do what it's supposed to do, or when you get up close and you melee with [your Lancer or Breechshot] or execute an enemy, which is really cool."

"And there's a big investment in gore in this game," adds Searcy. "That's a huge aspect of [what makes combat so satisfying]."

"We had this feeling that fans were getting a bit desensitised to the violence in Gears, because you're just going around doing all sorts of stuff and blood was a little bit more stylised in the past few games," Hanbeck continues. "So, to make you feel every single kill, we wanted the game to be a bit more realistic - not enough for you to get grossed out, but enough to be like 'wow, some shit's gone down in this world'."

And you know what? It works. Because this Gears of War game is much more centered around humans and the civilian victims as the Locust invaders emerge into the city of Kalona. The violence and bloodshed feel a lot closer to home. It's still very cartoony and probably more akin to something like Tarantino than anything else, but the wetness and crunchyness of its violence hits hard. Searcy told me, when we were chatting about E-Day's difficulty, that every encounter was designed to almost feel like a spring: that there is this coiled build-up and then an energetic release, and that the brutality and violence are a way of realising that moment to moment.

"We've got skeletons inside all the bodies, we've got some fun weapons that expose that a bit later on in the game, we've got crazy dismemberment, blood pooling… a whole bunch of stuff," Hanbeck says, grinning. "It's all there for that same, cathartic reason." When I was previewing the game, I tell the team, my partner entered the room and told me that this was a very 'wet' game. They laugh, and Searcy replies: "To be fair, every time I show my wife a trailer I'm working on, she's like, 'eww' [laughter]. I guess if you don't play Gears all the time, that's a fair first reaction!"

It provokes a conversation about Gears' identity; it's not exactly a satire like Helldivers or Starship Troopers or something, but it doesn't take itself super seriously, either. "It's not a game or franchise where we want to take ourselves so seriously," Fawcett reflects. "And I think it's the contrast that makes Gears so special: it's not one or the other. The humorous moments are usually kind-of relatable like soldier talk, gallows humour, dark humour - and we've been trying to get back to that squad banter that's kind of dark but you can't help but laugh at. Even Marcus… he's this super stoic character that's dry and grunting all the time, and every now and then he'll say something and you'll just [chuckles]. That's Gears: it's not a bleak, apocalyptic story - even though there's a horrible backdrop event happening, and what the characters are going through is absolutely horrific - there is this glimmer of hope, there's levity."

And, in many ways, that's what the violence and blood and gore is doing: it's providing a counterpoint to the high-tension, high-stakes combat that makes up so much of what E-Day is. Pairing moments of levity with grimdark storytelling contrasts well with how you can survive a firefight by the skin of your teeth, by somehow landing your last Longshot round inside a Boomer's skull and watching it coat your teammates in viscera. I praised this well-balanced execution in my review, and a cursory look around the internet will tell you it's landing well with the Gears audience, too. It must be vindicating for The Coalition, even if the mood at the studio is dour for other Xbox-related layoff reasons right now.

You can expect a full review of Gears of War E-Day next week, once I've had time to test out both the Horde and PvP modes. E-Day's first Season kicked off with the Early Access release yesterday and will be live for eight weeks, ending on 1st December. Ranked modes for PvP arrive on 13th October. The game sees a general release on 6th October, with early adopters able to play it right now.