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New Head of the Diablo Franchise Is Rod Ferguson of Gears of War

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Rod Ferguson, current studio head at The Coalition, current developers of the Gears of War franchise, is moving to Blizzard and will be in charge of Diablo. He's actually been with the Gears games since the first one, participating in the development of each game, ending with Gears Tactics which comes out in a couple of months.

Ferguson started with Microsoft back in 1996 and the first real project he worked on was Microsoft Train Simulator. After that he went to Epic Games where he helped create Gear of War 1, and then later on briefly left the Gears family to join Irrational Games and help get Bioshock: Infinite's development get back on track. He then moved to 2K games as a studio head and manager of Black Tusk, to return to Gears when Microsoft bought out the franchise from Epic and gave it to his new studio (now renamed to The Coalition) to develop. Gears 5 was received well, with new additions to the franchise like open world areas and vehicle exploration, which sounds pretty familiar from what we've seen of Diablo 4 so far. Outside Gears and Infinite, he's also been a producer on Bulletstorm, Infinity Blade, Shadow Complex, and Lost Planet 2.

While the Diablo franchise is more than just Diablo 4, it's definitely the main focus, and it's good to have such an industry veteran be in charge of it.

Source: PC Gamer.

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7 hours ago, Monlyth said:

I'm not sure if this bodes well. Diablo has action elements, but it's no first-person shooter.

However, he may be the person to bring back the you versus the world feeling that was gone from Diablo 3 once Adventure Mode was released.

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7 hours ago, Monlyth said:

I'm not sure if this bodes well. Diablo has action elements, but it's no first-person shooter.

In terms of gore and dark atmosphere that the Gears Series usually have, I think it will be a good addition.

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Shooter games guy leading Diablo team? Wtf. They rly can't just put ppl who actually know Diablo.

Edited by Kaelos
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This seems absolutely AMAZING. The Coalition revived the gears franchise after a train-wreck of Judgement. They did an amazing job listening to the fans over-all. Sure, there are people that were unhappy, but it seems like there just always will be. He's certainly used to working on a franchise that has nearly rabid fans with insane demands (Gears 1-3 was a power house trilogy respected like Halo, with incredible levels of story telling).

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2 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

However, he may be the person to bring back the you versus the world feeling that was gone from Diablo 3 once Adventure Mode was released.

Depends how much decisive power he gets. His influence might be limited, especially joining project that late. It might not be that obvious, as to what we should expect, after all when one of the "old guys" had rejoined Blizzard, we've got push for a mobile Diablo: Immortal, instead of getting more stuff in vein of a "classic" Blizzard.

Edited by Arcling

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I'm pretty happy about it tbh, Gears are a damn solid series, with some really great gameplay and decent atmosphere (the story is just basic game quality, which is still 17 steps up from Diablo 3). And D4 really isn't that far along, the only thing that's really locked in is the visuals, the major components like itemization and balance are all still up for debate.

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1 hour ago, Arcling said:

Depends how much decisive power he gets. His influence might be limited, especially joining project that late. It might not be that obvious, as to what we should expect, after all when one of the "old guys" had rejoined Blizzard, we've got push for a mobile Diablo: Immortal, instead of getting more stuff in vein of a "classic" Blizzard.

Well this isn't a returnee, its an outsider joining to specifically helm Diablo 4. Additionally, regardless of idiotic statements made at/around 2018 Blizzcon, Diablo Immortal still reeks of being an Activision push to get more than just Hearthstone into the mobile market.

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1 hour ago, Kaelos said:

Shooter games guy leading Diablo team? Wtf. They rly can't just put ppl who actually know Diablo.

Yes I'm sure he's never spent hours playing Diablo and Diablo II. Why, he must be 35 by the look of him. Probably going to bring some Train Simulator influence from his first project at Microsoft before leaving for Epic Games too. Choo choo Lilith, Barbarian on the tracks!

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24 minutes ago, SidonisAntares said:

Well this isn't a returnee, its an outsider joining to specifically helm Diablo 4. Additionally, regardless of idiotic statements made at/around 2018 Blizzcon, Diablo Immortal still reeks of being an Activision push to get more than just Hearthstone into the mobile market.

I hope so, personally I also miss that feeling of danger in Diablo. I would rather have less enemies to fight, but they should feel more powerful, instead of just blazing through hordes of them and barely even looking at what I'm killing.

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