Rod Fergusson, the Studio Head of The Coalition, has left the Gears of War development studio. He departs to join Blizzard’s Diablo team to oversee the Diablo franchise, with the new position beginning in March. The announcement tweet is placed below.
In a follow-up, Fergusson continued his emotional farewell: “I began working on Gears of War over 15 years ago and since then, it has been the joy of my life,” he states. “But now it’s time for a new adventure. I leave Gears in the great hands of The Coalition and can’t wait for everyone to play Gears Tactics on April 28.”
Though he says farewell to Xbox in his tweet, he likely won’t be far from it, as Diablo plays on the Microsoft console as well. However, given that it won’t be a Microsoft exclusive anymore, he likely won’t have quite the same connection with the Xbox team that he’s had.
A decade and a half is quite some time to work on a franchise, especially one as influential and monumental as Gears of War proved to be. The titles have spawned multiple stories, including novels, graphic novels, and comics. All in all, it’s benefited wonderfully from Fergusson’s work, and the most recent title received nominations for multiple awards throughout 2019, including three awards for Best Action Game, Xbox Game of the Year, and Best Xbox One Game. The seven nomination awards included a variety of different categories, including a nomination for Laura Bailey for Best Performance.
Overseeing the Diablo team is nothing to scoff at, obviously. The franchise has recently seen a massive surge in popularity in response to the release of the cinematic trailer for Diablo IV at the latest BlizzCon. Since then, information on the upcoming title has been slowly teased out as Blizzard builds up a nigh-unstoppable hype train.
There’s still quite some time until we see Diablo IV, which the developers have stated won’t be out soon “even by Blizzard standards.” We likely won’t see it in 2020 or even 2021. The upside of this is that Fergusson will have plenty of time to put in his input and put whatever changes, alterations, and additions he feels need to be added.
Bringing so much experience to the table, Fergusson is certain to be a welcome addition to the Diablo team. While there are obvious differences between the Gears franchise and the Diablo franchise, taking in that massive change could create absolute magic for the highly-anticipated Diablo IV.
