As of today, Microsoft now own the full rights to the Gears of War franchise. According to the post on Xbox Wire, Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver are going to be taking over development of the series and Rod Fergusson, a former Director of Production at Epic Games (specifically for the Gears of War franchise), will also be joining Microsoft to help the franchise move forward.
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney shared the following statement concerning the sale:
“Epic Games has reached an agreement to sell the ‘Gears of War’ intellectual property rights to Microsoft. We’re very proud of the franchise we built in close partnership with Microsoft over the past decade and are happy that this agreement enables Microsoft to forge ahead with the ‘Gears’ universe on their industry-leading platforms as Epic concentrates its efforts on new projects. Epic remains totally dedicated to supporting Xbox One and is licensing the Unreal Engine 4 technology to Microsoft in support of their future projects.”
There is no news yet of any Gears of War title coming out as a result of this yet but the post on Xbox Wire says that we should be getting more news on the future of Gear of War later this year.