20 Things You Didn't Know About Gears Of War

20. The Demo Doubled The Xbox 360's Memory

As mentioned, the series has impacted much of the gaming industry. Still, you might not know that its existence paved the way for a mammoth upgrade of the Xbox 360 before launch.

At the 2005 Game Developers Conference, Epic Games presented a demo of the then-untitled Gears of War running on the Unreal Engine 3. Impressed by the realism, textures, and stunning graphics, Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney pushed for the unreleased Xbox 360 to double its memory from 256MB to 512MB. Microsoft undertook the task.

Implementing that extra RAM came with colossal side-effects. Microsoft spent millions of dollars to develop the console, which also limited the amount of Xbox 360s available upon release.

On the upside, this change allowed future Xbox 360 titles to run in HD, with Gears of War being one of the first games released using the Unreal Engine 3. Unreal Engine 3 would, of course, go on to power such games as Borderlands, Batman Arkham, and Mortal Kombat.