Now that the rights of the franchise have passed from Epic Games to Microsoft, Black Tusk, one of the company’s first-party studios, is hard at work developing the next iteration of Gears of War for a new era. However, according to the developer’s Jack Felling, Black Tusk is building the mysterious sequel-cum-reboot from the ground up for Xbox One, and has no plans to release an Xbox 360 version.
Replying to a curious fan via Twitter, Felling noted that Gears of War will forgo a last-gen release in favor of Microsoft’s current-gen system.
@Clayton_117 No sorry, it won’t be available on the 360 but it will be available for the Xbox One!
— JackFelling (@btjackfelling) April 1, 2015
While it isn’t necessarily surprising that Black Tusk is focusing any and all resources on the Xbox One rendition, this news only offers up more evidence that cross-generational titles will soon become a thing of the past. In fact, many first-party studios have already ruled out releasing their upcoming triple-A titles on older hardware, and this Gears of War tidbit is comparable to Naughty Dog – one of Sony’s most prestigious developers – bringing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End to PlayStation 4 exclusively.
Of course, there’s no doubting that publishers such as Activision and Ubisoft will continue to release mutli-platform iterations of Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty, respectively, but it will be fascinating to see how this trend pans out over the next few years or so.
As for Black Tusk’s maiden entry into the Gears of War franchise, last we heard of the studio’s progress Microsoft’s Xbox boss Phil Spencer stated that the sequel is making “fantastic progress.” Does this mean we’ll learn more of its development during the company’s E3 presentation? Time will tell.
Published: Apr 1, 2015 10:47 am