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Microsoft's dedicated 'Gears of War' studio has a new name
Microsoft's done it again. After buying the Gears of War franchise last year, it's tasked one team to focus exclusively on that franchise and change its name in doing so. Sounds familiar, right? Canada's Black Tusk Studios is now known as The Coalition (a nod to the series' Coalition of Ordered Governments' hulking soldiers) and, you guessed it, the developers have one job: making Gears of War games. In a post on Xbox Wire, studio head Rod Fergusson says that like 343 Industries and Halo, he wants you to immediately associate The Coalition with musclebound meatheads wielding machine guns with chainsaw bayonets. So, a "real" game every few years with plenty of less-than-awesome output to fill in those gaps. Got it!
Microsoft buys Gears of War franchise, new game in development
Microsoft now owns another major franchise tied to its Xbox game consoles: Gears of War. That includes "rights to all existing and future games, entertainment experiences and merchandise," and it looks like a new game (likely for Xbox One) is already in production at Black Tusk Studios in Canada (Microsoft actually teased a project from Black Tusk back at E3 2013 during the company's press briefing). The franchise's former director of production, Rod Fergusson, will take on oversight. The Gears of War franchise was exclusive to the Xbox 360 (and later on PC as well), and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games used the third-person shooter series to show off its engine's graphical chops. Beyond being a graphical showcase, however, Gears of War developed a loyal following among online console gamers -- last year's Gears of War: Judgment was the first entry in the franchise co-developed by Epic and Bulletstorm dev People Can Fly, and it was expected to be the final entry in the series. Beyond a new entry in the massively popular shooter franchise, we expect re-issues (perhaps prettied-up re-issues) will happen at some point (a la Tomb Raider's "Definitive" Edition). At the very least, Gears fans can rest assured that more tales of meaty space marines taking down Locust are on the way care of Microsoft.
Xbox 360 devs reaching the 'upper end' of the console's graphic capability?
According to an interview with Epic Games' senior producer Rod Fergusson, developers for the Xbox 360 may be reaching the outer edges of what is graphically possible with the console. In an interview with Gamasutra, the Gears of War / Gears of War 2 head says that recent advances and refinements are pushing the system further than expected, though he still believes there's some room to grow. In Fergusson's words: "I think we're certainly approaching the upper end of it, as far as what developers are able to do with it, but just looking at all the demos we saw today -- ours and others -- it's clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar." Of course, there's a long gap between pushing a system to its limits and starting to look around for its replacement, though since we all know another iteration of the Xbox is inevitable, none of this news should come as any surprise. They have a name for things like this... progress.[Via GameDaily]
