New Gears of War has more resources behind it than ever before July 24, 2014 Source Speaking to the Official Xbox Magazine, Rod Fergusson of Black Tusk Studios has told of how the new Gears of War developers are not only more enthusiastic than ever before, but also have access to far more resources than was once available. In fact it’s because of these things that Fergusson isn’t too unhappy about the loss of Cliff Bleszinski or Chris Perna from the team, saying “They are obviously great friends and collaborators – it’s not one person makes something, it’s a team effort – but what I’m really excited about is just the pure energy that’s at Black Tusk. “When you live with a franchise for seven years, there were people at Epic who were kind of done – like I wanted to do something else interesting,” Fergusson explained. “But when you look at Black Tusk it is just a pure, raw, pool of energy and excitement for what they want to do. So I’m like walking through the studio and Gears of War is on every screen, we’re playing multiplayer together and we’re playing Horde together, and doing all this different stuff. Just to have that fresh enthusiasm is really invigorating.” In comparison to the team that worked on the original game, which was “super-lean”, the latest Gears of War seems to be fully staffed and have access to a whole load of new toys: “One of the other reasons I’m excited about having Gears of War at Microsoft is that we can actually see Gears do more than just any one particular instance. There are just a lot more opportunities because we have more resources to do that.” While absolutely nothing has been revealed about the new Gears of War, you can be sure it will be one of Microsoft’s big-hitters when it finally emerges. GOW4 Different Protagonist? Black Tusk Studio is facing a great challenge with the creation of 'Gears of War 4'. The franchise has already reached a trilogy stage and that is supposedly an end to a story arc. What the studio needs to do now is reinvent the franchise to make it fresh and new for fans and newbies alike. When the franchise was still in the hands of Epic Games, the trilogy had already experienced its fair share of dead main and supporting characters. Marcus Fenix’s backstory had already unfolded from the first three Gears of War games and it may make sense for Black Tusk to try for other protagonists. Since a lot of the supporting characters are also dead, like Marcus’ best friend Dom Santiago, having Marcus Fenix as the protagonist again might feel stale and overused. After all, it wouldn’t be the same without Dom or any of the Delta squad members. Black Tusk could try the Stranded as protagonists or even the Union of Independent Republic, the COG’s old enemies from the last Pendulum War. Essentially, it would be refreshing to get to play the war in a different perspective, in the eyes of another faction or protagonist. New characters would most likely mean a new setting as well. The war against the Locusts was pretty much worldwide, but the first three Gears of War games felt like it wasn’t worldwide at all. Again, like the characters, a new environment and a new setting would be a refreshing take at the game. Another thing that fans would really like would be smarter AI enemies. In the previous Gears of War games, the Locust enemies were fairly dumb and their numbers could easily be circumvented by patience and hiding behind a wall. This could be possible with the Xbox One’s processing capability and it would only be up to Black Tusk to make it happen. Source
