Gears of War finds a new home with Microsoft.

The Gears of War fran­chise has a new home, Black Tusk Stu­dios, which is now headed by Rod Fer­gus­son and owned by Microsoft. Rod Fer­gus­son was the pro­ducer of the first three entries in the fran­chise and will over see the devel­op­ment of future titles. Black Tusk Stu­dios, what was for­mally Microsoft Van­cou­ver, was formed to make a “Halo” like fran­chise for the Xbox brand. The last entry in the Gears of War fran­chise, Judg­ment, was devel­oped by Peo­ple Can Fly and was met with fair recep­tion. The first Gears of War was a graph­i­cal show­case for the Unreal 3 engine and the Xbox 360. I really enjoy the fran­chise and its stem­ming media (comics, sound­tracks, etc.), but I am curi­ous where it will go from here. I would like to see a pre­quel span­ning the Pen­du­lum Wars (which were always hinted at, but never really fleshed out), or I would love to see a next gen focus on Emer­gence Day and see the end of Sera on a large scale. It will be inter­est­ing if it stays on Epic’s Unreal engine or if it will shift to another. The big three buying franchises or studios is nothing new, but it is inter­est­ing to see Microsoft capitalize on its big third party, self published franchises by bringing them in house. Hope­fully we learn some thing sooner rather than later on this transaction and what will come of the fran­chise. Now that I think of it, wouldn't mind a Gears of War RTS in the same vein as Halo Wars.