Chris Esaki

While working at Namco, he led the development of Kill Switch, the game often credited for setting the template for the modern third-person cover system. Esaki later left Namco and joined Microsoft, where he worked on Gears of War as a design director, working with Epic Games and lead designer Cliff Bleszinski on the game's cover system. Gears of War improved on, and popularized, the cover system he initially designed for Kill Switch. He subsequently also worked as a lead design director on Mass Effect and Gears of War 2, both of which used similar cover systems to the original Gears of War.