Gears of War 4 would’ve costed $100 million and resulted in Epic leaving the industry

As we all know Gears of War now belongs completely to Microsoft after the selling of the ip by Epic Games. With the fourth installment drawing near, made by The Coalition, one of the co-founders of Epic studio spoke about why they sold the rights to this franchise and didn’t do a fourth game.

According to Tim Sweeney, Gears of War 1 costed about $12 million dollars in 2006 to make, but it made back around $100 million so it was very profitable. However, fast forward to 2014 with Gears of War 3 where it costed five times that money and you’ll see the pattern that the devs predicted.

Sweeney said if the company was to make Gears of War 4 and it didn’t become a huge success that would have resulted in Epic Games going bankrupt and out of business, so the decision was made to sell the full rights to Microsoft so it can proceed with the franchise in the hands of other devs.

Epic is currently focusing on Free-to-play approach with the upcoming Fortnite multiplayer survival title and Paragon. As for Gears of War 4 it’s still coming later this year for Xbox One and perhaps PC according to some recent leaks.