Microsoft acquires Gears of War IP from Epic

Gears of War is and forever will be a Microsoft-only IP.

That’s because the Xbox platform holder has acquired the rights to existing and future games in the series from Epic.

The Gears of War game will be a Microsoft Studios product developed by Black Tusk Studios.

Furthermore, former Epic executive producer Rod Fergusson, who worked on all three Gears of War titles, has been hired to help out on the game having left BioShock Infinite developer Irrational last year.

"We finished the last Gears talking about the next iteration of the franchise, one that Epic and I were going to talk about just as a natural course of the publishing and studio relationship," Microsoft Studios corporate VP Phil Spencer told Polygon.

"They didn’t have a firm plan for what they wanted to do with Gears, which obviously opened the door to conversation. They wanted to make sure the franchise landed somewhere we could develop it well, so we started having discussions about how we could continue the franchise."