Microsoft’s Black Tusk Studios are now going to be known as The Coalition, the developer announced today. The new name apparently reflects better what the studio and its philosophy and team dynamic is like, according to studio head Rod Fergusson.

“Beginning today, the Vancouver-based Xbox team working on the Gears of War franchise will be known as The Coalition,” Fergusson said. “What’s in a name? In short, The Coalition speaks to who we are as a team, and what it is we’re working on.

“A coalition is a team of diverse individuals working together for a common purpose, a concept that we feel describes our studio quite well,” he said, before also noting that The Coalition was an entity in the Gears of War games.

“When people hear 343 Industries, they associate it with Halo; when they hear Turn 10 Studios, they know that’s who makes Forza. Moving forward, when you hear The Coalition, we want you to think of Gears of War,” Fergusson said, and also added that Gears of War fans should expect some news this E3.

“Speaking of Gears of War, we’re getting close to E3, where we will share more on what’s next for Gears of War. Specifically, Gears fans should be sure to tune in to Xbox Daily: LIVE @ E3, on Monday June 15 at 4PM Pacific to see what we’re working on.”

Personally, no big deal for me if the studio changes its name, although I have to say, it does sadden me a little bit that each studio a Microsoft is now working on one franchise, and one franchise only. On the one hand, I guess that means they will have a complete handle on what they do; on the other, it might get creatively stifling for them.

We’ll let those guys worry about that stuff, though. For now, I want to see what’s in store for the Gears franchise.

Black Tusk Studios is slowly amassing a range of former Gears of War talent. Cinematic director Greg M. Mitchell is the latest to join the studio as announced on Twitter earlier today.

“BIG NEWS!! I’m leaving Epic, but heading to @blacktuskstudio to work on #Gearsofwar!! I’ll quote Marcus Fenix, by saying “NICE!!””

Mitchell has worked on all previous Gears of War titles in various ways. The IP was sold to Microsoft in early 2014 which led to the publisher tasking Black Tusk Studios with bringing out a new game exclusive to the Xbox One. Former Epic designer Rod Fergusson was hired to head up the project and with the addition of Mitchell, the well of talent just keeps getting stronger at Black Tusk.

Gears of War on the Xbox One currently has no set release date though small details arrive every now and then. What are your thoughts on Mitchell joining Black Tusk? Let us know in the comments.

A new Gears of War project is coming. Microsoft has been teasing one with all the subtlety of a jackhammer for a while now, and of course, it flat out makes sense, when they confirmed that Black Tusk Studios is working on a new Gears project last year, or that it is one of their most successful franchises.

So it makes sense that Microsoft is teasing a new one so hard even now. Fans have been waiting for some new Gears related news anxiously for a while now, and while we will have to wait till E3 for anything official, in the meanwhile there is this to consider- today, out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever, Microsoft uploaded a video showcasing Gears of War 3 midnight launches on to its Youtube channel. What could it mean? What are they trying to say? Is this a tease? For a new Gears game? For a remastered collection of all the games so far?

Speculate away, and hold on tight, because this E3 will be wild, I feel it.

At this point, there are very few things that we know about the new Gears of War game. We know that it exists, and that it is being developed by Black Tusk Studios. And that is about it.

Now, however, we have one more fact to add to the list. Like the other facts on this list, it is totally not obvious, and comes as a shock to everyone involved. are you ready for this ground breaking revelation? Okay, then.

The new Gears of War game will not be on the Xbox 360. It will only be on the Xbox One.

All snark aside, it was a bit of a fair question- though a fair few Microsoft published games have remained Xbox One exclusive (such as Sunset Overdrive or the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians), a lot of the games that Microsoft is involved in also got Xbox 360 versions- such as Titanfall, Forza Horizon 2, or Rise of the Tomb Raider.

In that sense, I guess it is good that this was clarified. But yes, guys, we are not going to be seeing the new Gears of War game on Xbox 360. That’s not happening.

Although we already know that Microsoft and Black Tusk Studios are working on bringing Gears of War to the Xbox One, exactly what it is that they are planning to do is not something that we know. Last week, there was a rumor that Microsoft would be bringing the Gears of War Collection to the Xbox One, sort of like how Halo: The Master Chief Collection refreshed all the games in the franchise in one bundle for Xbox One, but that was swiftly debunked.

If you are one of those people feeling burned by that, Xbox’s Aaron Greenberg has some words of reassurance for you, where he emphatically stresses that Microsoft has some plans for the franchise that will make fans ‘very happy,’ but also rules out sharing any of those plans right now.

Of course, it is a given that Microsoft is working on Gears of War in some capacity- it is one of their most successful franchises, and they have an entire studio dedicated to it. As to what this will all turn out to be, I suspect we will learn soon enough. This E3 is my guess.

After Halo: The Master Chief Collection, people have been expecting/wanting a similar Gears of War Collection for Xbox One as well, one that takes and remasters all the Gears games and puts them in one package. And while there have been the usual rumors and ‘insider leaks’ that you would expect for any anticipated project, we have had no official confirmation.

However, a guy on Twitter claims that Phil Spencer has sort of teased the Gears of War Collection for Xbox One to him on Xbox Live, and he has a picture to prove it (see above). In case it’s too blurry for you to read, it says, ‘Hey Xboss, Please give me a simple answer, are we’ll see a GoW Collection in my Xbox One. Yes or No :(‘

To which Phil Spencer has apparently replied with ‘Haha, I can’t announce that. But stay tuned.’

Now, the GamerTag in the picture is definitely Phil Spencer, but two things to keep in mind:

1. The picture could have been photoshopped
2. This doesn’t sound like a tease as much as a PM form of a standard PR response…

That said, if a GoW Collection is ever officially announced? We’ll let you know. So stay tuned.

It’s been a year now since Microsoft acquired Epic Games’ Gears of War franchise and put Black Tusk Studios in charge of bringing out a new Gears of War title for the Xbox One. There hasn’t been any real news on the same since then but work is still ongoing.

Black Tusk Studios tweeted out about the one year anniversary of the acquisition of the franchise. “Today marks the one year anniversary of acquiring the @GearsofWar franchise – we are humbled to be delivering on such a beloved experience.”

Rod Fergusson has also been hired to oversee the new Gears of War title at Black Tusk. Fergusson had previously worked as executive producer and director of production on Gears of War 1 to 3 at Epic Games.

What are your thoughts on the next Gears of War title? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information on the same.

Head of Microsoft’s Xbox division and Microsoft Studios Phil Spencer is certainly making the rounds these past couple of days. Recently he spilled the beans regarding upcoming games and info on an event, while answering questions from fans.

He stated about Black Tusk Studio’s work on Gears of War: “I’ve been really impressed with the work of @GearsViking [Black Tusk’s Studio Manager Rod Fergusson] and the team so far. Hard to tell long term what @blacktuskstudio will be doing but for now they are busy on GoW.”

He additionally went on to give some info about Rare’s unannounced game: ” I’ll say this, Gregg Mayles was the one presenting the game. If you know Rare, you know Gregg is true Rareware.”

He then went on to apologize to fans about the Halo : The Master Chief Collection matchmaking issues and online problems. “We have to do better with the matchmaking, apologies for that. Team is working around the clock. Sorry about the issues. I know our fans expect more from us. Team is making progress but I know it’s still disappointing.”

He stated further about Sony’s fan event that will showcase the PlayStation experience, and stated that there will be new announcements from Microsoft coming soon: ” I know Sony is doing a fan event in Dec. We don’t have anything planned for that time. Will be cool to see what Sony shows. Not sure yet. Right now just focused on what we are doing in 2014. I think we’ll have news before E3.”

And he also talked about Xbox One’s 1st upcoming Anniversary: “Yea, it will be a fun day. Hard to believe it’s only been a year, first year really helped me get centered for future.”

And finally Phil Spencer mentioned that the BBC’s iplayer is coming to Xbox One. “Very Soon.”

Progress is extremely slow on the new Gears of War, developed by Black Tusk Games and published by Microsoft after Epic Games sold off the IP to the company. We haven’t heard anything about the game yet and quite frankly, any sliver of information that comes out is worth noting.

So even if it’s something vague, like the developer’s official Twitter talking about the weapons in multiplayer, it’s worth a look. The studio recently tweeted director Stephen Toulose’s thoughts on the inclusion of the Retro Lancer, which was a topic of contention on the Gears of War forums.

“We hear you and are looking into some event oriented options that will allow us to tweak some gameplay based on feedback. Until then, no need to keep posting the Retro is OP please. We hear you.

“Rod and Martin and the rest of the team and I are seeing what fun things we can do with some new capabilities to answer some of your feedback. Don’t worry, this does not take away from the work we are doing on new stuff.”

Thoughts on this? Let us know below.

Gears of War was arguably the signature series of the Xbox 360. Epic Games’ third person shooter games originally sold the Xbox 360, dominated the new Xbox Live, and eventually went on to show the world what could be achieved on Microsoft’s console. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Microsoft announced earlier this year that it would be buying the rights to the franchise from Epic to make it a first party series.

They then tasked their Vancouver based Black Tusk Studios to work on a new Gears game, but we haven’t heard anything since then. However, speaking on his Twitter, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg said that the game is ‘coming along well, and in the hands of a very talented team,’ adding that he was ‘very impressed with their recent progress.’

The earliest we can expect to see the new Gears game, which went into pre-production earlier this year, would be at E3 next year (or maybe a short teaser at the VGA this year). We’ll keep you posted on it though,