Gears Of War For Xbox One Confirmed as Microsoft Acquires Rights To Franchise

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Posted January 27, 2014 by Rhys Evans in Announcements, Gaming News, Xbox 360, Xbox One

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It has today been announced that Microsoft has acquired the exclusive publishing rights to all future Gears of War games, as well as confirming that a new Gears of War title for Xbox One will be developed at Black Tusk Studios, according to a post on Xbox NewsWire.

Today we’re excited to announce that Microsoft Studios has acquired the rights to the “Gears of War” franchise from Epic Games, including rights to all existing and future games, entertainment experiences and merchandise. In addition, we are excited to announce that Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver, BC will take over development of the “Gears of War” franchise and that Rod Fergusson, former Director of Production at Epic Games on the “Gears of War” franchise, will join Microsoft and play a key studio leadership role at Black Tusk on the development of the franchise going forward.

Rod Fergusson previously worked on the series whilst at Epic Games, before departing the company in August 2012 to join Irrational Games whilst in development for the excellent BioShock Infinite. In April 2013, Fergusson departed Irrational and claimed to have started a new studio funded by 2K Games.

Epic Games has released their own statement in regards to the sale:

Epic Games has reached an agreement to sell the ‘Gears of War’ intellectual property rights to Microsoft.  We’re very proud of the franchise we built in close partnership with Microsoft over the past decade and are happy that this agreement enables Microsoft to forge ahead with the ‘Gears’ universe on their industry-leading platforms as Epic concentrates its efforts on new projects. Epic remains totally dedicated to supporting Xbox One and is licensing the Unreal Engine 4 technology to Microsoft in support of their future projects.

Hopefully, this change in developer will be a much-needed breath of fresh air for the series. Undoubtedly, we can expect more announcements about the series from Black Tusk Studios later in the year.


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