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A recent interview with Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski offered insight into the legendary game designer's feelings on Epic Games sale of Gears of War. Microsoft purchased the franchise in 2014, and at that time Gears of War went from being a third-party exclusive to an in-house Microsoft product. Bleszinski had left Epic Games two years earlier to take a break from games development, but he recently shared his thoughts on Epic Games' sale of the franchise that he helped develop into a worldwide success.
The original concept for Gears of War came out of the development for Unreal Warfare, a first-person shooter in Epic Games Unreal universe, that Bleszinski was designing in the early-2000's. Influenced by the recent success of Resident Evil 4 and the impressive graphics available in the Unreal 3 engine, Bleszinski decided to make a cover-based third-person shooter as he wanted to show off the detailed character models. While graphical considerations pushed the initial design forward, Bleszinski remains proud of Gears of War's story and in particular the decisions made around Dom and Maria.
During a recent episode of IGN's Unfiltered web show, Bleszinski shared his thoughts on why he thinks Epic Games made the sale to Microsoft. In Bleszinski's opinion once he, Producer Rod Ferguson, and Gameplay Designer Lee Perry left Epic Games, the studio "didn't know what to do with the franchise." According to Bleszinski, Epic Games hadn't released a game in a while and despite the Unreal Engine selling well, the developer may have needed an influx of cash. Fortnite was still years away and the Epic Games Store was even further away from being a reality.
Following the sale of Gears of War to Microsoft, Bleszinski shared that Head of Xbox Phil Spencer was the only one to call him. Bleszinski praises Phil Spencer as a "gentleman and a scholar" by saying "that's just who Phil is." Bleszinski had been retired from the game industry for two years when the sale to Microsoft was completed. Gears of War 3 was the last in the franchise that Bleszinski worked on as part of Epic games. During his interview, Bleszinski was asked his feelings about the Coalition-developed Gears titles and said that while The Coalition had players choose which characters live or die, Epic Games committed to the fates of Dom and Maria.
Since Epic Games sold Gears of War to Microsoft, the studio has gone on to develop, perhaps with cash from the sale according to Bleszinski, one of the largest games in history with Fortnite. Bleszinski went back into games development in late 2015 with Boss Key Productions, which launched the ill-fated Lawbreakers in 2017. The failure of Lawbreakers led to the closing of Boss Key Productions in 2019. Bleszinski recently published his autobiography, Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games.
Source: IGN
