Black Tusk producer Rod Fergusson, who's currently working on the next Gears of War game for Xbox One, has described developing a sequel as "managing betrayal."

"They [customers] want something new but they don't want something so new that it doesn't feel like what they want," Fergusson told OXM in an interview. "But if you put out something that's very familiar and is the same as the game they just had, then it's like 'I've already had this. This isn't new enough.'"

Fergusson says that the trick is "betraying" expectations enough to innovate and bring something new to the franchise, while at the same time proving that Black Tusk understands Gears of War, and not losing what fans loved about it in the first place.

"So I've already given multiple speeches to the team like 'here are the core tenets of Gears, here are the things that won't be changing, and here are opportunities for us to innovate that we think we can knock out of the park,'" he said.

The new Gears of War game is still in the concept/prototype phase, and no assets for the title have been released yet beyond the purposefully blurry concept art in the picture above. Fergusson also said that Microsoft's acquisition of the series allows Black Tusk to "expand its breadth and do a lot more stuff with it."