290°

Why the former Gears of War, BioShock Infinite producer is returning to Gears

Polygon:

Just four months after announcing plans to head up a new 2K Games studio in the San Francisco Bay Area, former Gears of War and BioShock Infinite producer Rod Fergusson is on to a new thing.

Sayai jin4173d ago

Not really. It's simple, MS hired him. This is good news for Gears "Heads".

It seems as though MS was listening to it's fans and ensured that a cherished franchise will be back...

RocknRolla4173d ago

In saying that, a fresh team of good developers could potentially revitalize this franchise. Bring something new to the franchise that's exciting whilst still retaining that brutal nature it's known for.

I have faith for now, but will wait until I see or hear more.

Volkama4173d ago

As with 343, MS poach people that were key to the success. It's good news.

I hope Gears goes back to the confinement and tension of the first game. I felt 2 and 3 lost a little of that in favour of spectacle.

JokesOnYou4173d ago (Edited 4173d ago )

I agree with everything you said RocknRolla.

Gears is one of my favorite franchises and its far too early to end the series with Judgement....compared to many other big name franchises Gears still has plenty left to be explored.

Volkama Gears 2 was one of my favorites, 3 was "OK" imo.

Volkama4173d ago

Fair enough Jokes.

I felt Gears 1 forced you to move and out-flank the locust, whereas 2 and 3 were a lot more "stop and pop" with more grand size and scripting.

Enjoyed all 3 though (not tried Judgement).

JokesOnYou4173d ago

Yeah I get what you mean Volkama.

Also Judgement was very average compared to the other games so you're not missing much imo.

H0RSE4173d ago

I enjoyed Judgment for its class/ability based co-op MP. I would like to see this mechanic explored and implemented more in-depth in future titles, and if it made its way into competitive MP, in a way that worked well, I might actually play it. As of now, I only ever play the SP and the co-op based MP of Gears.

nukeitall4173d ago

I enjoyed Gears 3 the most and played it the most. In close second I love Judgment fresh take, but was saddened the community died way too fast. Even today, many of my XBL friends still play Gears 3.

I cannot wait for this next installment in Gears.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 4173d ago
Axios24173d ago (Edited 4173d ago )

Let's face facts

Gears of War franchise sold over 20,000,000 games just on 360.

The only other last gen exclusive games to beat that are Halo on 360, and a bunch of Wii games (mostly bundles).

Utalkin2me4173d ago

Yeah and they both released 4 games last gen too.

Axios24173d ago

So releasing a game every 2 years is a bad thing?

Maybe GT5 is what you would like to see, a game that takes 6 years and scores 84 on metacritic

SoulSercher6204173d ago (Edited 4173d ago )

@Axios2

So shorter development makes a game good? Well using your logic:

Ryse took 3 years and scored a 60.
Killer Instinct was developed in less than a year and scored a 73.
Fighter Within was developed in 2 years and scored a laughable 24.

I guess your logic fails now don't it?

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 4173d ago
GrathiusXR4173d ago

All fixed: Polygon source, oxcgn credit URL.

The Meerkat4173d ago

I'm sure it's nothing to do with a huge pay packet.

n4rc4173d ago

Nothing at all.. After all, smart people work for free ;)

pompombrum4173d ago (Edited 4173d ago )

This good potentially be big news but I guess it all depends on what direction Microsoft take the series. 1-3 were awesome games and I've spent many hours on them however Judgement just strayed way too far away from what made Gears such a fun game.

Still, decisions to buy the franchise are definitely a sign of intent from Microsoft, their reputation has gone up a notch in my eyes.

DEATHxTHExKIDx4173d ago

interesting I may have to get an X1 down the line now. Gears 3 was the only multiplayer I kept coming back to.

JeffGUNZ4173d ago

Did you ever play the first gears online? Man, that online was the best thing ever. I spent countless time online, it was pure bliss!

pompombrum4173d ago

For four months straight nearly every night, I'd load up the original Gears at like 7pm with friends then the next time I checked the time it would be in the early hours of the morning. That game had my most fondest gaming moments of last gen.

Omar914173d ago (Edited 4173d ago )

Yea it's literally the only game I use my 360 for. I loved Gears 3 so much I bought the gears edition 360. So now I need to spend another 550 bucks plus 60 bucks for the game and another 60 or so for online. We are looking at 680 bucks just to play gears (hopefully halo and some other games) lol

HammerKong4173d ago

this is not much ,i know if you will buy a xb1 you will have to spent more on other games like next halo,new ip from black tusk which was in development for 2 years and more,may be quantum break a new ip from great ramady studios ,may be sunset overdrive,new ips from rare,Ms osaka next gen jrpg,big park new ip,multiple indies from twisted pixel and team dacato other Ms 1st party studios and may more planneed games from Ms and may be you will be spentimg this money before gerars 4 land ,black tusk is already working on another game which will land in 2015 ,whcih is not confirmed and will be confirmed at e3 ,you can expect gears 4 in 2017 ,he also stated that this was the first day of him at black tusk which confirms that they have just started making it and will take time.

Show all comments (37)
260°

Gears Of War Creator Urges Devs To Make Single-Player Games Amid EA's Live Service Focus

Gears of War's creator has spoken out against the trend of turning established franchises into live services, urging developers to focus on single-player experiences.

Relientk77145d ago

I agree with Cliff for once.

Single player games > GaaS

JEECE145d ago

Too bad he didn't have this opinion when he chased trends with Lawbreakers. Or when he chased trends with Radical Heights.

Popsicle145d ago (Edited 145d ago )

He learned from the mistake or he wouldn’t be advocating for more single player experiences. I find this refreshing in a world where we often see people so stubborn that they tend to double down on a mistake which results in making things even worse. Seriously, good for him!

JEECE145d ago

@Popsicle

Oh for sure, better late than never. And better to somewhat own up to your mistakes, rather than just blaming your release window, or advertising partners, or gamers lol.

anast144d ago

@Popsicle

Of course we will never know his intentions, but it's hard to believe he is just a naive agent that is learning from his mistakes.

-Foxtrot145d ago

He could have done one himself after Gears of War but he did Lawbreakers…look how that turned out.

RaidenBlack145d ago

Not converting Jawbreakers into F2P was the final nail in the CliffyB coffin.

Knushwood Butt145d ago

Jawbreakers would have been a better name! Heck, I might just go and trademark that right now.

BISHOP-BRASIL144d ago

@Knushwood

Aren't those a kind of candy already?

coolbeans145d ago

You're missing the point. His studio's short lifespan is what *inspired* him to make this comment in the first place.

-Foxtrot145d ago

Oh I know the point...I'm just stating the obvious and how stupid he was in the beginning to jump on a trend he had no real experience in. A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War.

He'd have been better creating something like Gears of War again, a great single player story and a good online mode.

coolbeans145d ago

-"A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War."

I mean... you're kinda muddying terms when Gears has always had a strong multiplayer component. Even if I grant you that, Cliffy B started cementing himself at Epic with Unreal Tournament, which was among the earliest shooter series to have "proto-GaaS elements" (downloadable maps, cosmetics, special editions that bundle stuff together). Lawbreakers and Radical Heights (were it finished) weren't major career shifts to him like they would be for, say, Fumito Ueda.

Regardless of that, it's still kinda useless to state the obvious when CliffyB himself made his comments with the benefit of hindsight already.

145d ago
CrimsonWing69145d ago (Edited 145d ago )

Look, these a-hole publishers can do this, in fact I want them to, so they can f*ck around and find out and fail hard scaring away everyone else from doing this live service push.

This industry is run by some of the dumbest corporate pieces of sh*t I’ve ever seen. They spend stupid amount of money with literally nothing that stands out from games from the previous generation (look at Arkham Knight to the $200 mill Suicide Squad comparison vids), you’re overpaying devs, and you focus on games as a service to milk consumers that a lot of them grew up off traditional games. We’re not idiots, we sniff this sh*t out and won’t touch it.

So, what’s your answer to not getting a ROI? Raise game prices and double down on GaaS so you can suck your consumers dry. That model only works for some games and even then how in hell do you expect it to work with multiple games!? They’re ruining the damn hobby with this corporate greed.

Cut back on dev budgets, cut back on how much your staff is getting paid, until sales for games bring in a profit. That’s the answer and make some games that feel like there’s passion behind them, not some cookie cut up game that feels like the entire existence behind it is to offer as little as it can with repetitive bullsh*t and selling off all this content throughout its life. It’s gross.

anast144d ago

I agree with every point here.

Redemption-64144d ago

Games do bring in a profit, it's the greed that is killing the industry. Here is a fact, live service games overall make more, significantly more money than single player games

What you should be asking is executives not wanting continuous growth or firing them. Saying devs should be fired when those who are fitting the bills and setting unrealistic expectations would make things worse. What do y9u think would happen if they released say, 30 single player games and over half of them fail? You are going after the wrong crowd.

DankSinatra145d ago

About time he learned. I guess he finally stopped blaming everyone else and took accountability for his mistakes and realized that people really don't care that much for trends or live service.

Show all comments (24)
850°

Report: Gears of War Trilogy Collection Will Be Multiplatform and Available on PS5 Day One

A new rumor suggests that the Gears of War Trilogy Collection is real, with it launching on the PS5 day one with Xbox and PC.

LG_Fox_Brazil151d ago

Yeah, I can totally see that happening. My only doubt is if they are going to announce that at the same time as the Hallo Collection or if they will try to distance both announcements to try to ease the pain

helicoptergirl151d ago

This same insider was correct about Forza Horizon 5. So this might be true. But I heard rumors are the Halo:MCC is the next big one to be announced. We'll see I guess

DefenderOfDoom2150d ago

I am hoping Halo:MCC comes to PlayStation .

Cacabunga150d ago

Someone check on Obscure Observer please

piroh151d ago

They should announce dedicated showcase for all Playstation ports, it would be less painful for their fanbase.

Anyway thank you Team Xbox and Phil i will support the games.

Profchaos151d ago

Phil should wear a crash t shirt to that

Profchaos151d ago

I see them being in the same year but halo coming alongside ns2 and if e day is early next year gears collection could come at Christmas time

The_Blue150d ago

Ease the pain? You do know these people won't even entertain us irl, ironic 😭

1Victor150d ago

NOOOOOOOOOOOO screamed an obscured observer from across the room the street.
Well I’ll check it out DAY 1 🤣 I hope the do a good job porting it and don’t have issues like MCC did when it first launched on s/x🤷🏿

Mr_cheese150d ago (Edited 150d ago )

This will be cool

TheEroica150d ago (Edited 150d ago )

Ease the pain? Pain for who? Lol. More games on more platforms is a gamer friendly approach. Locking games behind hardware is archaic and lame... Let's not turn into corporate stooges.

TheEroica150d ago

4 corporate suits voted me down. Shame. Pro gamer all the way.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 150d ago
Lightning77151d ago

I remember talking about this with someone on the forums and they made some good points. Like what exactly are these old games doing at the moment? They pushed the hardware and did everything they needed to do for that platform at the time. Now in MS case even their new games are gonna be day and date but if we're taking about old games. Those games are just sitting their not doing anything anymore. When you port the old stuff to another console, that game has life again and move few more units and a new audience.

As I said Xbox is different because their stuff is inching closer and closer to be day and date. Though both Xbox and PS have old games that are just sitting around when they could have new audiences and breathe new life into the older exclusives.

Terry_B150d ago

Just imagine how well collections of older Nintendo games would sell on pc, xbox and playstation...

NotoriousWhiz150d ago

I honestly don't expect Nintendo to gain much from releasing their games on 3rd party consoles. People are conditioned to buy Nintendo games on Nintendo hardware. Once that changes, Nintendo will probably lose out on revenue as people pass on their underpowered console to wait for their game to release on a superior console. Tons of people only have a Switch for exclusives, and those exclusives sell better than most games on the other platforms and Nintendo is able to pocket the bulk of that revenue since it is their game on their console.

Profchaos150d ago

Not very considering rom packs have been eaily accessible for years now it's only really GameCube and above you need to pick and choose because the game size is fairly large and the Wii IMO didn't emulate well considering the motion controls.

So as incredible as they are I doubt they would sell unless they are overhauling them somehow but then again I wouldn't want to see them overhauled but that's just me I still play the NES version of Mario 3 over the SNES all stars version as a example because I think it looks better.

150d ago
Sonic1881150d ago

All you had to say was Microsoft is a third party publisher now

Lightning77150d ago

Huh? They clearly are what are you trying to get at?

rlow1150d ago

That still makes and releases a console…..which knocks them out of the third party club…..nice try

Sonic1881150d ago

@rlow1

A third-party publisher that still releases a console? Sure, whatever makes you sleep at night. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're trying to do.

generic-user-name150d ago

The Series X/S backwards compatibility to their old classics was one of the last few selling points for those consoles.

RaidenBlack151d ago

Finally Gears 2 & 3 coming to PC !

neutralgamer1992150d ago (Edited 150d ago )

Exactly I also hope we get a fable collection since fable 2 never came to Pc

I hope we also get gears of war 4 on Pc too since only gears 5 is on steam along with tactics

ninjabutt13150d ago

Gears 4 is already on pc, maybe not in steam but its in xbox app

150d ago
isarai151d ago

Where's the goalposts gonna go now? 😀🫳🍿

helicoptergirl151d ago

Get an obscure person to bend over and then I'll show you :)

Chevalier150d ago

They're too busy crying in a corner and being served crow again though. Pretty sure everything is going to voicemail.

goken150d ago

@helicoptergirl
Normally with articles like this the person you mentioned is usually obscured from observation 🤣

Profchaos151d ago

Revenue same as always Microsoft don't care about community it's reputation and they've never been worried about losing loyal customers if you recall the Kinect era they abandoned the hardcore entirely to pursue the hardcore gamers grandma

Outside_ofthe_Box151d ago

"Where's the goalposts gonna go now?"

"It's just old games sitting around doing nothing! Might as well get money from it and a new audience you can use to potentially make it exclusive again for next gen for them to be enticed to jump ship!"

~New goalpost

150d ago
Outside_ofthe_Box150d ago (Edited 150d ago )

"Eventually Sony will likely be forced to do the same"

Is that you begging for games that you once bashed in the past? Too funny, things must be dry in your land.

Chevalier150d ago

"aren’t selling as much as Xbox - and the answer will be that they are on less platforms."

No they won't because Xbox doesn't announce sales numbers at all. So how would they compare these sales? What idiotic logic. These shareholders going to pull numbers out their backside?!

thorstein150d ago

Why doesn't he just use the one account. How many N4G tabs does he have open with different accounts?

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 150d ago
neutralgamer1992150d ago

Why do you need goalposts? More gamers will get to play games. Phil said it few days ago again no game has any red line around it. Seriously man it's gaming and your choice of plastic box makes no difference

It's 2025 enjoy gaming on any platform. We should be celebrating how the Biggest gaming publisher is allowing their games to be played on all platforms but how can we get that when some people feel the need to take victory laps

150d ago
Chevalier150d ago

Well hate to say we told you so. But we called this happening as soon as we saw these big purchases and falling sales, but, a whole slew of people said this would NEVER happen. Goalpost keep moving too as if it's some weird flex.

thorstein150d ago (Edited 150d ago )

TBH, Forza, the Indiana Jones game, the next Elder Scrolls, and I hope Fable will make it over. I'm excited about those.

I don't think MS going the Sega route would be a bad thing. Nintendo and Sony are making good hardware. There's no reason to not make profit off of that.

But the goalposts moving is in reference to people who constantly approve and post disingenuous stories that they scream are true.

For instance, "you can build a comparable PC to a PS pro for $700," conveniently leaving off the OS. Or, "Sony delisted HD2 in 170 countries" when in reality, it was 170 regions of which SteamDB lists as having over 3000 regions.

neutralgamer1992150d ago

Chevalier

What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box

Chevalier149d ago

"What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box"

Cool and it should be celebrated. But this idiotic narrative is that it was done for us as consumers needs to die.

Lots of idiots trying to reframe this when they literally argued that this would NEVER happen when we said yes it will because Gamepass isn't profitable and sales losses all round and add in lower hardware sales and it was obvious

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 149d ago
1Victor150d ago

@isarai: “ Where's the goalposts gonna go now? 😀🫳🍿”
.
The goal post is going home crawl into the shower open the flow and start crying while rocking back and forward i obscured by the darkness of the room.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 149d ago
helicoptergirl151d ago

I haven't played any oif these games either. Will buy and go through the campgains for sure. They a co-op correct? Hope so

Yui_Suzumiya149d ago

They're amazing. If you ever played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine then you already have an idea how they play.

Show all comments (113)
90°

Rumored Gears of War Collection is at the top of my 2024 Xbox wishlist

As the long-rumored Gears of War Collection looks like it may finally materialize on Xbox, the timing could not be better as Gears 6 and movie news swirls.

Read Full Story >>
theloadout.com
1Victor532d ago (Edited 532d ago )

(Insert “It should be multi platform if Microsoft investors wants more money” JK here)
All jokes aside congratulations to all the gears fans it will be a blast I remember having fun on the first one on my 360 elite till got RROD and quit Xbox all together but that’s a story for another day.
Congratulations 🎊 🍾 🎉 🎈 🎉 🙏

Wyesvin532d ago

I'm excited for this just aslong is on the pc also cause I don't have the newest xbox console.

shinoff2183532d ago

I enjoyed the tactical one. I can't remember the actual name but it was fun.