The only Gears of War on the minds of everyone right now is obviously Gears of War 3. The game looks amazing and will likely be one of the biggest hitters for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

However, Epic Games seems to have other plans for their successful series this year outside of Gears 3. This news comes straight from Microsoft after GameStop accidentally leaked a bundle called Gears of War Ultimate just yesterday.

The GameStop listing has since been taken down and not much is known about this new game except for its very reasonable retail price of $29.99 and the game's extremely close release date — February 15th, 2011. IGN discovered the news and have also obtained an official conformation from Microsoft about the title.

Of course Microsoft wouldn't spill everything and just confirmed the basics about the new SKU.

"We can confirm a forthcoming bundle SKU involving the Gears franchise, though this may not be the final SKU name. There are no specifics available at this time, except to say it will not involve Gears of War 3 or the beta."

The official confirmation is nice, but it seems that anyone hoping to score a Gears 3 beta with the cheaper package are out of luck - and will have to stick with purchasing Bulletstorm to get into the beta. It seems like an obvious move to put the Gears of War beta in with this new Gears of War game, but one can see why Epic may want to bundle it with a new IP that they are hoping will be a success. Just like the Halo 3 beta did with Crackdown, Epic is hoping to garner huge sales from fanboys willing to spend money on Bulletstorm to get into the beta.

Other than the lack of Gears 3 beta, $29.99 price tag, and February release there is nothing else known about the game. The most likely possibility is that this new game is actually just a bundle featuring Gears of War, Gears of War 2, and all of the DLC. It wouldn't be the first time Epic re-released a Gears of War title - they've released Game of the Year editions of both previous titles. Another plausible possibility, though very unlikely, would be the long rumored Gears of War Kinect game. It would be awesome to chainsaw Locust to ribbons sans controller - but to see it happen in February seems too soon, and too good, to be true.

Gears of War Ultimate will likely have the proverbial veil lifted at this year's GDC, where Epic Games is also set to reveal a brand new IP - so new details should be revealed soon.

Source: IGN