Black Tusk Studios, the team working on the new Gears of War game for the Xbox One, has just undergone a name change to the more appropriate The Coalition. The name and the new logo seem to represent the team's new-found purpose of focusing on Gears of War titles for the Xbox One.
Rob Fergusson, the studio head for the newly named The Coalition, did a brief video about the studio changing the name from Black Tusk. You can check it out below.
If you don't have time to watch the video and you're not really interested in what Fergusson has to say but you still want the true gist of why they had to change the name from Black Tusk Studio to The Coalition, there's a brief write-up over on the Xbox news wire where Fergusson states...
When people hear 343 Industries, they associate it with Halo; when they hear Turn 10 Studios, they know that’s who makes Forza. Moving forward, when you hear The Coalition, we want you to think of Gears of War.
That's a very sensible way of going about it. When you hear the name “Black Tusk Studio” you don't readily think about Gears of War. Seeing a chainsaw logo of the letter 'C' and having it rev up instantly makes me think of the chainsaw on the Lancer and the Lancer instantly makes me think of Gears of War and the Xbox. So... mission accomplished?
At the moment we do know that The Coalition is working on a Gears of War title for the Xbox One. What we don't know is who will star in the game and what direction they'll take with the game. It seemed like the story kind of resolved itself in Gears of War 3 where Marcus Fenix and the crew saved the planet, beat the bad guys and lost a few comrades along the way.
Microsoft tried to bring the series back with Gears of War: Judgment but things didn't turn out so well with that game, as many gamers saw it as a cheap cash-in on the franchise and as little of anything else.
The newest Gears of War game is set for release on the Xbox One quite some time from now. Most people are expecting that it won't arrive until 2016, so we're likely going to see the game make an appearance at this year's E3.
There's also been some strong rumors and hints at a Gears of War Ultimate Edition planned for release on the Xbox One, somewhat similar to the Halo: The Master Chief Collection that was released for the console last year. If it's true that Gears of War Ultimate Edition is in the works as well, I could easily see the game being announced along with some footage of maybe the newest game during Microsoft's E3 conference. Of course, whoever is working on the Ultimate Edition would really need to ensure that the multiplayer is ironed out right proper so they don't run into the same problems as Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
