Well.. I mean Diablo IV was announced and shown not that long ago lol
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Rod Ferguson leaving The Coalition, joining Blizzard to oversee Diablo franchise
- Thread starter jbug617
- Start date
Didn't the trailer for diablo 4 clue you in on that already? Lol
Gears is stale but Rod took a brand new studio and managed to get them to put out 5 titles in 6 years (Gears Ultimate, Gears 4, Gears 5, Gears Tactics and Gears Pop!).
That's an incredibly high level of output for a smallish AAA studio.
For example, Naughty Dog has 1.5x the amount of employees and has basically released 2 (UCC, UC4) games in that time. Halo has more than double the amount of employees and has released exactly 2 (Halo 5,MCC) games in that time period.
And those are pre-established studios that already had games in development before Rod took over.
He gets shit done, always has.
It's probably Ybarra dragging him there to clean up the mess that is Blizzard right now. It's not the first time for Rod Ferguson doing something like this. Last time he left Epic to rescue the Bioshock Infinite stuck in dev hell. I don't feel so good about Diablo 4 right now. Probably somebody there left too.
I have a strong connection to Blizzard, they were a big part of my childhood. Met my best friend through Warcraft 2 in second grade. I'm glad to see them adding a smart, thoughtful guy like Rod to the team.
Gears of war world does not equal the linear game world. its the setting I want to explore
gears 5 semi open world and level system with jack was dabbling its toes.
I would like for a full fledged swan dive into a 3rd person RPG set in gears with its mechanics.
* start as a stranded with no equipment, level up and as you progress the story, that determins if you stay a stranded, become a cog, or become a swarm/locust
Maybe it's less to do with Rod and more to do with Microsoft and creative decisions?
I really enjoyed Gears 5, but I tapped out during the 2nd Tour of Duty and the monetisation/grind aspects were pretty brutal.
If I trust Activision Blizzard with investing properly into anything then its Diablo. If they mess it up like that then there truly is no hope.
Tactics is being made by SplashDamage and POP! was outsourced to a third party mobile studio.(I forget the name)
I would say.Days Gone in Gears world
Merge Days Gone with Metro Exodus and add a leveling RPG choice/interaction system and peoples minds would implode. it would be a gold standard.
More importantly somebody that's known for getting games out the door.
The "get shit done" man is leaving The Coalition, its sad, who will take his place? man shipped Bioshock Infinite, Gears UE, Gears 4 and Gears 5 in 6 years, i can't think of a replacement.
Not sure if that fits with Blizzard if we want a good product tbh. They should take all the time they can for D4.
It's possible, sure, but there are other first party titles that released around the same time that don't have anywhere near the issues that Gears 5 does. I don't think it is/was just a Rod problem but watching the studio fail to communicate effectively among themselves let alone with the community just makes it seem like the leadership in TC isn't doing the greatest job.
Rod's got to be one of the best studio heads in the industry. He's great at getting high quality games shipped in a timely manner (something that could surely be beneficial to Diablo team.) As for the Coalition, I'm sure they'll be fine. They have a strong foundation to build on for the future of Gears.
All of the game's Rod has shipped has gotten decent scores. Are they all 90+ GOTYs? No, but that doesn't matter.
Perhaps a fresh perspective will bring the franchise to the modern era when approaching storytelling, pacing and universe expansion. He even admitted that his lens is a bit narrow and wants other to bring in more than what he is capable of.
so i imagine mike texted him "come over man, lets get diablo done,. you're the guy for the job"
so i imagine mike texted him "come over man, lets get diablo done,. you're the guy for the job"
I mean...4 and 5 were his. I'd argue both were relatively underwhelming at best. At least to me.
Let them become Black Tusk again and given their size, let them do something alongside Gears.
What's the implication here? That diablo 4 doesnt actually exist?
Happy for Rod, but maybe now we can have someone step up who doesn't play it safe. JJ abrams though was badly needed at diablo, maybe we now can get our Rian Johnson for gears!
They'd be better off working on something else for a while and letting the IP lie fallow. It's the best way to have fertile ground in the future.
Wat. The Coalition didn't even develop 2 or 3 of those games, so that's a meaningless number and comparison (plus UCC and MCC were collections of multiple games). It's like saying Sony Santa Monica has released 9 games this gen when 8 of those were via their external development team.
Anyway, this sounds like a big step up so good for him. Blizzard are in a really weird spot right now though.
