Former Epic Games bigwig Rod Fergusson is having a rare old time at Microsoft’s Gears of War studio Black Tusk, by the sounds of things. It’s not just that everybody at Black Tusk is mad keen about making games - Black Tusk has access to significantly more resources than the old Gears of War team did, back in the day.
That’s why Rod Fergusson isn’t too bothered by the absence of franchise veterans like Cliff Bleszinski or Chris Perna from the ticket. “They are obviously great friends and collaborators - it’s not one person makes something, it’s a team effort - but what I’m really excited about is just the pure energy that’s at Black Tusk,” he told OXM in an interview first published in UK issue 112.
“When you live with a franchise for seven years, there were people at Epic who were kind of done - like I wanted to do something else interesting,” Fergusson went on. “But when you look at Black Tusk it is just a pure, raw, pool of energy and excitement for what they want to do. So I’m like walking through the studio and Gears of War is on every screen, we’re playing multiplayer together and we’re playing Horde together, and doing all this different stuff. Just to have that fresh enthusiasm is really invigorating.”
Nice to know that Horde is an office favourite, isn’t it? There’s little to reveal about Xbox One’s first Gears of War title right now, but it sounds like the right ideas are on the table.
The original Gears of War team was “super-lean”, Fergusson noted. "We always had the smallest team possible, we were always sort of understaffed and overworked so we weren’t able to fully take advantage of what the franchise could do.
“So one of the other reasons I’m excited about having Gears of War at Microsoft is that we can actually see Gears do more than just any one particular instance. There are just a lot more opportunities because we have more resources to do that.”
Rod Fergusson @GearsViking
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Playing Gears with my youngest for the first time. Best quote - “I like playing Gears because it makes me feel like a badass”
7:08 AM - 18 Jul 2014