A recent report from Game Informer revealed details on the work Gears of War creator Epic Games did on Gears of War 4 before they stopped the development of the game and sold the franchise to Microsoft.
Epic had actually been in preproduction for more than six months on Gears of War 4 before deciding to move on. Producer Rod Fergusson, who worked on Gears of War 4 at Epic and is now leading the game at Microsoft studio The Coalition.
"Back in the days of Unreal Engine 3, we had this belief that we'd only build technology that we would use," he stated. "So if Gears didn't need it, it generally didn't get put into the engine. That was from a perspective of, if we don't use it, it’s going to decay. If we don't touch it, it will just rot on the vine and then we'd have bad code.”
"That's not how it was with Gears 4," he explained. "Epic's initial Gears 4 engine was very mobile-centric more than it was console-focused.”
Game Informer also said that, following Chinese Internet giant’s investment in Epic, the studio started making more PC-focused games.
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer was a major part of the studios negotiations, and he told Game Informer, "[Epic] didn't have a real clear roadmap for where Gears was going" after Tencent invested in Epic and Fergusson and Bleszinski left.
Gear of War 4 will release later this year and the beta will take place in April.
