Augustus "Cole Train" Cole is a fictional character in the Gears of War media franchise. He first appeared in the first video game of the series as a supporting character, and has since appeared in some capacity for every mainline and spin-off installment of the Gears of War franchise. Cole is voiced by Lester Speight in all of his video game appearances.
Within the series, Coles is a former star athlete in his youth who participated in humanity's war with the Locust Horde on the planet Sera by enlisting with the Coalition of Ordered Governments ("COG"), a supranational and intergovernmental military collective who are the dominant human political force on Sera. Cole has spent most of his military career alongside his close friend, Damon Baird; unlike Baird and most of Cole's team mates, who are often dour or cynical in temperament, he is usually depicted as a vibrant, enthusiastic character known for his brash humor and infectious energy.
As one of the most well known characters in the Gears of War series, Augustus Cole has earned a mostly positive reception, but also criticism and accusations of racism by some sources. The character was the subject of legal action launched by Lenwood Hamilton, a former National Football League player who claimed that his publicity rights was infringed upon because the video game character had a number of features he alleged were identified with him or his public persona. Various merchandise for the character, as with other of the series' characters, has been released.
Creation and development
Cole is named after Phil Cole, a level designer at Epic Games. Cole is concepted as an ex-professional player of Thrashball, a contact sport heavily inspired by American football, prior to the events of the video game series. Cole and Baird's roles were originally reversed, with David Beckham as the inspiration for Baird as a sports star. Former The Coalition studio head Rod Fergusson revealed in an interview that Cole was originally going to be named "Gus the Bus", but the developers were concerned that they would infringe on the nickname of a Pittsburgh Steelers football player who matched the Bus reference; as a result, the studio went with the name "Cole Train" instead. Fergusson noted that players would be able to pick up references about "Gus" if they have played the original game, as the voice actor of series protagonist Marcus Fenix John DiMaggio was instructed to say the "Gus" line with Cole, but the studio did not do much more from a dialogue perspective. The development team later used Jamie Foxx's character from the sports drama movie Any Given Sunday as Cole's archetype.
For Gears of War 3, Cole was originally meant to play a more prominent role; players were supposed to be able to swap between Fenix and Cole throughout the progression of the single player campaign. Cole has a daughter named Hana who first appears in the Hivebusters comic series to support the eponymous squad in their endeavours. The developers originally intended for Hana to appear in the main campaign of Gears 5, but due to story changes during the game's development, her character no longer fit into its narrative; instead, she is redesigned as a scientist who develops a method for infiltrating and destroying enemy Swarm Hives from within in the spin-off Hivebusters comic, which takes place in parallel with the events of Gear 5.
Cole is Lester Speight's first role in the video game industry. Speight said the character's popularity led to many fans identifying him as Cole, and they would regularly express their excitement towards him and his work via social media sites, websites and in person. Dan Ryckert from Gameinformer have noted the real-life resemblance of Speight, a former footballer, to his character, commenting that "casting choices don't get much easier than this".