Epic sold Gears of War as it was finished with the IP

Epic Games sold the Gears of War IP to Microsoft because the studio had done all it wanted to do with the franchise.

A deal was concluded earlier this year for Microsoft to take full ownership of Gears of War, before development was handed over to the new Black Tusk Studios.

Some fans were confused about the sale, but Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said it was for the best as they were prepared to let it sit on the shelf for "a decade or more".

"We've gone through a long process of figuring out the games we're going to build at Epic worldwide in the future and we concluded that we weren't going to be building any more Gears of War," he told Polygon.

"As much as we love the game, we're heading in a new direction.

"Because we weren't planning on building any more Gears games we were just going to let that sit on the shelf for a decade or more, in case it had any future value to us."

Sweeney claimed the deal was a win-win for everyone involved, and now fans will get to see more Gears of War in the near future.

"It was one of those rare moments when both Epic and Microsoft were able to make a business that was obviously best for the community. Much better to have Microsoft building Gears games than for it to be sitting on the shelf unused by Epic."

Epic Games is currently working on Fortnite, a PC exclusive sandbox-survival game.