In a bittersweet announcement made on his twitter account, Rod Fergusson has revealed his departure from The Coalition to join Blizzard in order to work on the Diablo franchise in March.

Rod has worked on the Gears series since the very beginning, before Microsoft bought the IP from Epic Games and handed it off to The Coalition back in 2014. It is no secret how much he loves working on the Gears franchise, so I must say this announcement definitely came out of left field for me.

As a huge fan of the series, I will admit I am sad to see Rod go, but I am excited to see where he goes with Blizzard and Diablo. Being the studio head at The Coalition, he had a lot of influence over the Gears games, so it will be interesting to see how they change with his departure.