Rumors of a Gears of War remake collection for the Xbox One were stoked when a fan posted an image to Reddit supposedly showing a conversation with Xbox Head Phil Spencer. Current Gears of War Producer Rod Fergusson snuffed out those rumors on Thursday, however.
The image that kicked the rumor mill off was an off-screen picture of a question and answer with Spencer via the Xbox One’s messaging app.
The question was if we’ll see a Gears of War for the Xbox One like we saw with Halo and the Master Chief Collection . The Xbox boss’ response was, “Haha, I can’t announce that. But stay tuned.”
This resulted in a mass of speculation on Reddit, NeoGAF, and on social media. Black Tusk Studios is currently the development house working on the next Gears of War title. So, this kind of rumor mill running around the internet is obviously of interest to Ferguson. The game’s producer put out a statement via Twitter categorically denying an Xbox One remake, but possibly fueled more speculation in its wake.
Seeing lots of buzz about a Marcus Fenix Collection, even more so recently….
— Rod Fergusson (@GearsViking) March 19, 2015
I love the passion, but there’s no Marcus Fenix Collection. We ARE working on other exciting Gears projects. I’ll see you at E3!
— Rod Fergusson (@GearsViking) March 19, 2015
Note the use of the plural use of “project.” Does this mean that more than one Gears of War game is in development? Or is this just a simple reference to a trilogy. Fergusson is not saying right now.
The fact that Fergusson will be at E3 sets off another round of speculation as well. Microsoft appears poised to introduce the next Gears of War title. A debut at this year’s E3 also suggests that the game could be ready for a fall 2016 release on the Xbox One. That still may be too early though given the new title’s relatively brief development history.
Gears of War was purchased from Epic Games by Microsoft in January 2014. Black Tusk Studios was then pulled off the new IP it was working on to develop the next-generation of the Gears franchise with Unreal Engine 4. Fergusson, who produced Gears of War 2 and 3 was also brought on board to shepherd the development and nail the feel of the gameplay .
A 2016 release means that the next Gears of War would effectively been in development for only two years. That kind of rushed timeline for AAA games is nearly unheard of outside of yearly franchises like Call of Duty . Even that series has moved to a three-year development cycle due to the development work required for the current generation of consoles.
Are you disappointed that there won’t be a Gears of War collection for the Xbox One? Sound off the in the comments below.
[Images via Gears of War , Reddit]
