More than one studio is working on the multiplayer portion of the upcoming Gears of War 4, according to The Coalition’s head Rod Fergusson.
Splash Damage, the studio behind titles like Brink, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Batman: Arkham Origins is helping out on the Xbox One exclusive. The studio also did work on the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition remaster.
“They’re helping with a lot of the level design stuff,” Fergusson said in a feature with Game Informer. “Especially with meshing of multiplayer maps, we’re tapping into the expertise they got from Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. They also have a lot of expertise with online systems, in terms of matchmaking from Ultimate Edition. They basically had to rewrite for Xbox One, between us and them, the whole matchmaking sub-system…when you get a strategic partner like Splash Damage, we talk about training up our own team on Gears, but when you have another team that’s trained up on Gears, we definitely want to work with them as much as possible.”
Gears of War 4 launches on Xbox One in Q4 2016, but players will get a taste of the multiplayer through an open beta that begins on April 25th. Gamers who played the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will get early access to the beta starting April 18th.